Babymoon!

Well, we left home this morning, destination: Monterey. We planned a last trip for just the two of us before the baby comes, and a few weeks ago I saw in the paper that such a trip is called a "babymoon." How appropos, then, that we are spending it in the same place we spent our honeymoon.

We stopped in Santa Nella, which was also apparently where half the rest of the population of California stopped today on teh way home from visiting relatives for the holidays. Having never been to the famed Pea Soup Andersen's, I was determined that I would break that streak. We got in and I was... confused. It looked more like a gift shop than a restaurant. Strike that -- it looked like a tacky tourist trap of a gift shop. But then we wound our way out of the back of one line (for the dining room) and into the back of another (for the coffee shop), and proceeded to wait. For quite a while, the line didn't move at all, and we were stuck looking at the sorts of colorful placards that say things like "I can only please one person per day. Today isn't your day." But then the line moved, and soon the waitress was looking for a party of two. Though we were about a third of the way back in the line, we were the only party of two, so we got to cut! It was a funny place inside -- all "Dutch kitsch," as Sweetie called it. It had very 60s/70s rock walls, and two animated characters all over named Hap-Pea and Pea-Wee. The menus and napkins were all very retro, too. Now, pea soup is often made with a ham hock in it, so I wasn't really expecting to be able to have any, and had already prepared myself for a salad. But right at the top of the menu, it declared that the soup was vegetarian, and furthermore they had an all-you-can-eat (which for me was one bowl) soup, bread, and beverage special. I was really pleased. It was good soup, too!

After that, we ended up not stopping again until we got to Monterey and to our B&B, the Jabberwock Inn. It still has Christmas decorations up, and it's really charming. Our room this time is the Mome Rath, which is smaller than the Borogove (where we stayed before), but very sweet. It has a big whirlpool tub for two, a king-size bed, Victorian-style wallpaper, a fireplace that is toasting the room up nicely, and an Alice in Wonderland mural in the W.C. We're also just downstairs from the water-soda-juice fridge, and just upstairs from the fresh cookies, hors d'oeuvres, tea, coffee, and sherry (not that I'll be taking advantage of that -- I have had two cookies, though!). We've just been relaxing and reading thus far, although I believe (I have to confirm) that we have dinner reservations in the old part of Monterey at a place called Montrio in about 45 minutes.

I'll keep you updated. We brought the camera, and tomorrow we're going to the aquarium (yay, sea otter exhibit!).

Oh, incidentally, on Christmas day there was the greatest (tragic) breaking news story: tigers on the loose and attacking in San Francisco! If you're not from CA, you probably didn't hear this, but we got the whole story. On the TV news on Christmas day, they were doing that "as it happens" reporting that is so often unreliable, and at one point they thought there might be four tigers on the loose. We were sure there were going to be maulings all over the Sunset district. In actuality, the newspapers reported later that there was just one tiger loose, and she never left the zoo. But she did kill one man and attack two others before police shot her. And the update this morning is that tiger experts believe there's no way she leaped over the wall of her enclosure, as it was initially thought. Rather, they think she had an accomplice! (Or at least someone careless enough to leave a door open.) Anyway, tiger attacks -- that's riveting news right there!