
Pumpkin Seed Encrusted Salmon
(Final post of three of my California trip. See post #1 here and #2 here)
When my mother and her husband go out to eat, which is often, they like to dine at the finest restaurants. And why not? They worked hard all their lives and are now enjoying their mid 70’s. This trip, was no exception. They set out to treat us to the best restaurants in Monterey and Carmel.
No, Friendly’s & Applebees are not on their list! Needless to say, I have gained another 15 pounds making a total of 25 pounds since I turned 50! Or so my clothes say…
Going Gluten-Free went right down the drain and into the Pacific Ocean.
From Caviar

Ok, so it wasn’t very filling, but beautiful.
To Killer Oysters
To Warm Chocolate Cake with Pumpkin Ice Cream & Gourmet Fluff
Ahhh…heavenly!
To top it all, they never allow us to pay. One day my husband had to sneak away from the table and secretly pay the bill. SCORE!
Let’s talk El Sur Grande, shall we? You hear magnificent things about Big Sur, but seeing it first hand is surreal. 90 miles of coastline and breathtaking views. It looks fake after a while and you cannot believe it is that picturesque.


Another day, my husband, older brother and I decided to drive (2 hours from Monterey) to San Francisco for the day. We left early in the morning so we could see as much as we could before dark.
We were deterred by a little incident.
After coming out of the shower and going to my room, I walked straight into a leg of a chair. Just like that. We are talking, major STUB.
As I have mentioned in earlier posts, Rheumatoid Arthritis has had it in for my feet from day one. I have had several surgeries to correct the deformities and a couple of other broken toes. Meaning, I am not a foot model.
After some choice words, I had to take the freshly broken little toe and bend it back to its original place. Jesus. Mary & Joseph…it hurt!

Well, you can’t expect every picture to be breathtaking!
Being the stubborn brickhouse that I am, I ignored the black & blue rapidly forming on my foot and got ready for San Francisco. The pain was so excruciating that my toe actually felt numb.
I have my broken toe to thank for our next adventure. I have difficulty walking distances when I don’t have any broken toes, never mind touring Fisherman’s Wharf by foot with my little very broken piggy toe, thus:
QUACK! QUACK! QUACK!
You got it! I forced my husband and brother to board a Duck Boat with me to tour from land as well as from the water. What a perfect way to see the city.
The free duck whistles they gave us were not enough to placate my husband and brother with Captain Crunch (as he identified himself) behind the wheel.
I on the other hand, joined my fellow tourists in the quacking action, ensuring that tourists walking the streets would look our way and basically laugh in our faces.
As if that was not bad enough, when Captain Crunch asked for volunteers to drive the boat on the water, guess who raised her hand?

Sporting my mom’s duck yellow jacket – how fitting
I worked up quite the appetite from all that quacking so we decided to visit the Little Italy section of San Francisco for some good pizza. Tony’s Pizza Napoletana, it was! And it lived up to its reputation with its many choices of crusts and toppings.
But the reviews did not warn us about...Nipple Squeezing that apparently goes on at Tony’s.
Thankfully or regretfully (I cannot decide which one), it was not my nipples that got squeezed. They were the nipples belonging to my older brother-that got the action.
It turns out that the couple sitting at the bar while my brother was ordering drinks was mighty friendly. The 30-something locals who had been married for ten years, stroke up a conversation with my brother right away.
After much chit-chat, the woman reached out and squeezed my brother’s nipples. She claimed that they were simply too irresistible (who does that?). After feeling violated (for a second), my brother decided to take revenge and squeeze her nipples. At which point her husband laughed.
Being faced with the decision to return to our table and continue to dine with us or stay around to see what ensued next at the bar, he chose to “swing” his way back to us and tell us of this blatant attack.
My husband got very quiet…perhaps coming down with a bad case of envy that it had not been him at the bar. But most likely, he was quiet because he was thinking of how beautiful his own wife is and how lucky he is to have me her?
We ended our visit to San Francisco viewing The Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and having a night-cap at a bar by the water.

I did manage to escape from Alcatraz
The flight back home was much shorter than the way there since we only had two connections instead of 20. Once again, we got to sit right behind first class where only a short curtain with a gap in the middle separated us.

Our view of First Class

The First Class menu we did not partake in
*A big shout out to Bitter Ben @
http://bensbitterblog.wordpress.com/2013/10/27/if-you-missed-bitterness-this-week-your-aim-was-a-little-off/
who bitterly helped this Twitter Virgin with her new Twitter account and is my first (and only) twitter follower! Please join Bitter Ben and follow me
and make sure to also follow him
so he doesn’t get bitter with me!