Carmel by the Sea....

Carmel meets the sea... right at the edge of the main street you have this incredible ocean and pines.

Today I went to Carmel and Cannery Row. 40 years ago you could live in Carmel. It was a smallish, quaint housed, rustic streeted, Monterey pine filled town. 20 years ago you couldn’t afford to buy a house in Carmel, which had ARRIVED and, while still ‘quaint’, had begun to lose it’s charm. Today, while you still can’t afford to buy a house there, you no longer want to... which is, I suppose, a good thing... Oh yeah, once you get off the main drag (which is FILLED to the brim with a billion gifty shops) the area is still pretty, but it’s changing even as I type this. California’s propensity for BIGGER HOUSES ARE BETTER HOUSES has robbed this once beautiful place of all that made it unique... but the ocean still meets the main drag, and the setting is incredible... so we all still come...

I managed to avoid the 17 mile rip off and Pebble beach and went up further to Monterey and Cannery Row. I’ve loved Cannery Row since I read the book, and, indeed, the first time I came up here it was pretty much the same. Again, not on the map yet, it was sliding into disarray, but had this ... this feeling that, at any minute, Doc might just come out of his place and ask you to go get some frogs... Doc’s place is still there, if I’ve been told correctly. It amazes me that it isn’t gone. There's a picture of it at the end of the blog... There is a big plot of land in the middle of the row that had construction started on it YEARS ago and has never been finished. I have no idea why, but I’ve stared at that rebar for what seems like forever.

Every time I go to ‘the row’ I try to ignore all the shops and stand at the edge of the ocean and listen for the voices...

I can almost hear them....

no... really...