In the last episode, Billy and Ari were last seen irrationally deciding to descend a slippery cliff leading to a private beach with spotted with massive boulders bracing against a stormy brigade of waves. 

Billy was apparently possessed by a magical leprechaun spirit that enabled him to hop from one rock to another with ease. I, on the hand, was fumblingly clinging to every clingable jutting thing for dear life before departing for the next secure ledge. But eventually we got to the rocky bottom and I followed Magical Leprechaun Billy out, out where the tide pools were. He found one and beckoned me over. As I leaned over to watch him poke his finger into an angry sea urchin, my hardy exploring companion, The Iphone 3G fell into the rocks! Just as a wave was crashing against us! Oh, the travesty… And so there were 2. 

Billy sacrificed the dryness of his right foot to recover the corpse. At least we know that he died doing what he loved. 

Not moments later, I fell myself…But that’s neither here nor there.

The upward hike was just as rewarding. We conquered the cliff! We were invincible! And the cup of tea that I hid in the shrubs just as the trail was getting difficult was still there! 

Right! What a detour! We still had to beat the sunset to our campsite so we hopped into the car and continued along Hwy 1. We got to the Fernwood Campsite around 4 pm. 

Full disclosure: we reserved a “tent cabin” at the campsite. A tent cabin is a ready-made tent with a wooden floor and bunked beds with mats inside. It’s actually not as advanced as the name sounds. The frame is wooden but the skin is made from tent-fabric. Our cabin was situated right along a trickling river. 

At the campsite, Billy was possessed with yet another spirit—Ogg Mogg, the flame-loving caveman. Ogg Mogg immediately started a fire and dutifully kept it going until it was time to sleep. 

We ate chips and salsa with avocado, heated up some chili and roasted marshmallows like any good camper. Then Billy told the spookiest ghost story called Old Man River…

DAY 4 

We got up around 7:30 and walked to the general store to get a hot cup of tea. For breakfast, we had the ollallieberry and apricot muffins we purchased at Linn’s the day before. Don’t even mess! They were DELICIOUS. 

But boy was it chilly. And the two of us were looking a little scruffy. And we weren’t about to take showers at the campsite and walk around being wet in THAT weather. So, disheveled as we were, we hopped into the car and made our way to our next destination, Point Lobos. 

Point Lobos—“the greatest meeting of land and water in the world.” DAMN! This place was crazy beautiful!! We started out in Whalers Cove and set afoot the North Shore Trail. I think we made it to the Badland Cove with the crazy eroded alternately pebbly and smooth landscape. We took Whalers Knoll back to our car. 

OKAY! Enough adventure for us! 

It was lunch time. For the last 4 days we had been eating sandwiches. Ingredients included artisan baked bread from Trader Joes, Kewpie mayonnaise, prosciutto, avocado and Muenster cheese. As good as the sandwiches were, our travelers wanted something more today… As a reward for their hard work and adventurous spirit. 

We drove our famished selves to Carmel-by-the-Sea and ended up at Flahertey’s Seafood Grill. I had seafood jambalaya and Billy had fish and chips. Yea…it was good. No complaints. Food tastes amazing when you’re really hungry like that. 

We got to our last inn, Carmel Country Garden Inn, around 2 pm. The lady at the office let us check in early. We finally got clean and took a lonngggg nap. Then we headed to the Santa Lucia room for the 5 pm wine and cheese hour hosted by the inn! The white wine was suuupppperrr light and slightly sweet. My kind of wine. 

We walked around downtown Carmel Valley for a bit but the whole situation was a little sketchy. First of all, when the lady at the office was giving us directions she said, “Watch out for those drunk drivers.” And I said “drunk drivers!” in this indignant tone and she said, “Well, WHATTYA EXPECT? It’s a small town, and it’s the holidays—these people don’t have anything better to do!” Which made me think of every murder story that began with, “It happened in a small town…”

Then we had to walk through this dark park with a disfigured tree that was ostensibly “decorated” with Christmas lights to appear more “festive” but had the effect of highlighting how nightmarish the tree looked. 

And then we had to walk through a completely dark parking lot with just one car loitering in a spot. Just as we passed it, a man got out of the car and grumbled “hello…” and that’s when I lost my marbles and ran for it. Billy talked some sense into me and reminded me to look cool. 

Back in the safety of our inn, I cooked up some sushi rice. Billy made his temakis with mayo, leftover sausages from the jambalaya, cucumbers, avocado, and salmon. I had mine with cucumbers and avocados. 

DAY 5

The inn hosted breakfast in the Santa Lucia room. Two elderly gentlemen with sweet European accents served us waffles. We also piled our plates high with English muffins, bagels, hard-boiled eggs and blueberry cakes. Ravenous streak. 

Billy had work online again from 10 to 3 pm. Then we headed home. I broke my years-long burger fast and had a 6-dollar burger from Carls Junior. It was kind of good.