Carmel-by-the-Sea pt. 3 - out and about

Six years ago, during the first Covid wave, I found myself newly single, almost 50, and living at home with my mom and dad for a few months (you can read about that weird and beautiful and extremely poignant time in my life here). California was the first state in the US to issue a shelter in place ruling, but Carmel is rural enough that we were still able to range fairly far and wide. Highway 1 was open, but no stopping was allowed, so you could only ‘go to’ Big Sur in your car. Though inevitably, one did — I did, anyway — sneakily park, get out of it, and stand on the very edge of the continent for 15 or 20 minutes in total solitude, considering the expanse of the Pacific and the zero f*cks it gave about us and our pandemic travails. (Doing this about once a week was probably more of a lifeline to sanity than I credited it for being at the time.)

Anyway — in the interest of preserving equanimity in our (not large) family home, I took off a lot on my own, as a consequence of which I became something of a local trail ninja. They best are below, along with a handful of calendar events and things worth doing.

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GET NATURE…:

In pt. 2 of this guide, Chez Noir’s proprietors Jonny and Monique Black cited the Elkhorn Slough, as a favourite local thing to do. That’s spot on for anyone enthusiastic about birds, otters, and marine/estuary wildlife and wilderness in general. You can rent kayaks or take a bigger boat with a guide. It’s about a half-hour drive north of town on Highway 1, in Moss Landing.