Odometer: 103,210
6:45: Marco is getting up. It takes me a bit longer to wake up. We take it easy and leave at around 9:00 in direction Monterey Bay. The scenic Hwy leads through vast farm and grass land, a very entertaining drive. In Monterey we find ourselves in a huge crowd again. All the parking lots of the Aquarium are full and people are queuing on the street already to get in. We are so turned off by this that we decide to move on. We are very disappointed but know exactly that we would not be able to enjoy it anyway and would just waste the money.
We take the road along the coast up to a gate where they were asking USD 8.25 to pass on to Pebleton Beach, which is ridiculous on the one hand, understandable from the resident’s point of view on the other hand.

Carmel seems to be a very nice place but it is totally packed with cars cruising bumper to bumper through the narrow streets. Again we turn around. This is an area only worth visiting out of tourist season. We return to Salinas and find a lousy cheap room without air-conditioning which still costs USD 45. The only hope for the day is to find a nice place for dinner. We cruise around and decide for Olive Garden, which is definitely a good choice.