The Monterey Regional Recreation Trail: Skating through Literature From Richard Katz's
Skating Unrinked book, published in paperback by HarperCollinsWest in 1994. Or was it '95? If you are not reading this on a screen, stop reading and head to www.Amazon.com. Thanx. Richard Katz = katz@frogojt.com. email
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Chapter monterey
The Monterey Regional Recreation Trail: Skating through Literature
Before you head down to Monterey, get out your copy of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row and reread the first few chapters about Doc Ricketts and the bums who caught frogs for him. The Monterey Regional Recreation Trail starts just over the city limits of Monterey, in the town of Seaside.
"...The owner wanted a dollar and a half and didn't come down to eighty cents for three days. The boys closed at eighty cents and gave him an I.O.U. which he probably still has. This transaction took place in Seaside, and the stove weighed three hundred pounds... It took them three days to haul it to Cannery Row, a distance of five miles, and they camped beside it at night."
from John Steinbeck's Cannery Row, 1945
The Recreation Trail runs those same five easy miles along Monterey Bay, past some of the biological niches and habitats that Steinbeck chronicled firsthand. It ends in the town of Pacific Grove at a beautiful little peninsula known as Lover's Point.
How to Get There by Car from Highway 101:
The easy way to get to Monterey from Highway 101 is to take Highway 156 west from Prunedale, and go by way of Castroville and Marina on Highway 156/Highway 1. After the town of Marina, you pass the boarded up remains of Fort Ord. The next little town on your right is Sand City, and the next exit on Highway 1 is Fremont Boulevard in Seaside. Skip that exit, and take the last Seaside exit at Canyon Del Rey Boulevard. Turn left at the bottom of the offramp, just before you get to the Monterey Beach Best Western Hotel, and go back under the freeway. After one long block, you will come to Del Monte Boulevard. The trail begins at the corner of Del Monte and Del Rey.
To park, take a right on Del Monte Boulevard, past the Day's Inn Hotel on your left. Take another right past the Comfort Inn on Roberts Avenue, where there is plenty of parking.
What It's Like:
Starting from the southwest corner of Del Monte Boulevard and Canyon Del Rey Boulevard in Seaside, head south along Del Monte. On your right is Roberts Lake.
The trail is smooth asphalt that parallels a railroad track. Vestigial tracks are still there, lying sometimes on the right of the trail and sometimes to the left. The trail builders also have embedded a few commemorative railroad ties in the trail here and there, mostly at intersections. This is a nice arty touch but can be mightily inconvenient to a skater who trips on them.
Note the Del Monte Gardens Skating Arena on your left. It's open in the evenings several days a week, and for "matinees" on weekends. It's quaint. The cost is about four dollars, "with skates or without". Perhaps the best part is the deco stainless steel winged roller skate sculpture affixed to the corner of the building. If you want to give it a try, be prepared to take off your skates to get in the door, and then put them back on when you go out on the Roll-on urethane-over-wood rink floor. The management says your skates have to be "indoor safe"; that means that if they are in-line skates, the nuts and bolts that secure the wheels to the chassis have to have rounded ends.
Just after the roller rink, there is a dead end road to the right. Take a short side trip along it just so you can say you skated next to a sand dune. The "U.S. Gov't -- No Trespassing" signs apply to the dunes, not the road.
The trail continues along Monterey State Beach with it's sand dunes on your right. When you approach the wharf area, the trail gets a bit confused, especially at Figueroa Street, where the municipal parking lots are. If you go to the right here and take the path of pink concrete behind Tony Roma's restaurant, you will stay next to the water and never have to traverse any parking lots. (Take the ramp behind the Harbor Master's office.) If you go to the left you will skate on a trail next to the sidewalk on the north side of Del Monte Avenue.
By either route, when you approach the Plaza by the Custom House, the trail is marked with traffic signs ("Recreational Trail".) Keep to the left near Fisherman's Wharf; skates aren't allowed on or near the Wharf. There is a remarkable bronze sculpture near Heritage Harbor on the other side of the Wharf, a lifesize hyperrealistic figurative likeness of Saint Rosalia.
A block or two past the Wharf area is Cannery Row. This is a concrete trail with several inconvenient cross streets, in prime tourist territory. There are skate rentals at several locations, including Adventures by the Sea, which also rents kayaks (408 372 1807). The trail runs next to a genuine post office in a genuine Railway Express Car. Note Doc Ricketts' Lab, a juke joint right next to the trail. Next door is the Emporia Restaurant and Carousel. The kids are really impressed by that carousel. On the kids' right is a spectacular marine wonderland. If only we could get the kids to be as fascinated with the tidal cycles of life as they are with that magnificent merry go round. Try this out on them:
Doc was collecting marine animals in the Great Tide Pool...It is a fabulous place: when the tide is in, a wave-churned basin, creamy with foam, whipped by the combers that roll in from the whistling buoy on the reef. But when the tide goes out the little water world becomes quiet and lovely. The sea is very clear and the bottom becomes fantastic with hurrying, fighting, feeding, breeding animals...
from John Steinbeck's Cannery Row
There is wine tasting at 700 Cannery Row. A block or two further, past some more difficult cross traffic, you arrive at the biggest tourist draw on Monterey Bay, the Monterey Aquarium. Be careful of the cars leaving the employee lot.
The city lights this part of the trail for night skating.
Just past the Aquarium, the trail enters the town of Pacific Grove. No more cross traffic. Sometimes it gets crowded; beware of the rented four-wheeled "bicycles" on the path. The trail ends rather abruptly at Lovers Point Park.
On the way back, when you cross the Plaza by the Custom House, you can follow the yellow line to Del Monte Avenue. The trail between Washington and Figueroa has been "under construction" for years now.
More experienced skaters can skate over to the beach at the beginning of the trail in Seaside. If you go west on Canyon Del Rey Boulevard to the end, and turn left on Sand Dunes Drive, you will have arrived at Monterey State Beach, a beautiful spot and surely one of the loveliest spots on earth you can skate right up to. Note that you are skating past two freeway onramps, and the cars are not very kind or understanding.
Places to Eat and Stay:
If you are in Monterey looking for a place to stay, you might consider the Day's Inn across the street from the beginning of the trail. It's certainly not as well appointed as the Monterey Beach Hotel located right around the corner next to Monterey State Beach; nor is it precisely on the trail, as is the Comfort Inn across the street. However, the Day's Inn is ruggedized for skating; you can skate right up to your room on wide concrete verandas. Day's Inns make a real effort to corral the trade of travelers with kids, so be sure to take advantage of the kid's meals that come free with the room. If you call in advance, you can get a room on the fifth floor with a view of Monterey Bay; if you call a few weeks in advance, you can get room 530, which is at the end of the cellblock and doesn't have anybody at all walking past your window.
Places to Eat:
When you get to Reeside Avenue, near Cannery Row, go two blocks away from the Bay to the Bagel Bakery. Excellent bagels, excellent coffee -- a great place to go during an early morning skate.
For later in the day, there is a remarkable sports bar in Pacific Grove, called Tavern by the Bay. It's across Ocean View Boulevard from Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station, just west of the Aquarium, in a complex of factory outlets called the Tin Cannery. They will serve you a beer (and some great seafood) at the Tavern as long as you are seated. The Tin Cannery allows skates; there is a ramp at the west end of the building.
If you saved a bunch of money by staying at the frugal Day's Inn at the beginning of the trail, you can blow some of it on dinner at the Old Bath House at the very end of it. It's expensive; in my opinion, it's worth it; and they serve skaters (with their skates off.)
Public Transportation:
If you want to get to the Monterey Recreation Trail by public transport, you will be pleased to note that the Greyhound Station is right on the trail at Del Monte Avenue and Adams Street in downtown Monterey.
Ratings:
Path Surface = ** (some ***)
Public Transit Access = Greyhound
Surroundings = **, some *
Level of Difficulty = EASY
Overall Rating = ****
Length = Five miles one way
Other trails to check out in the neighborhood:
Coyote Creek Trail in San Jose/Morgan Hill is en route for most readers.
There is a trail that starts at the bottom of the offramp at the northernmost Fremont Boulevard exit off Highway One. You already saw it as you drove into town. It runs along the freeway for miles and miles. Right next to the freeway, in fact. If it weren't so, this trail would have a chapter all to itself. But situated as it is, it will have to be content with being a footnote, and nothing more.
ß ß ß
One Last Thought about Monterey:
"When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to capture whole, for they break and tatter under the touch. You must let them ooze and crawl of their own will onto a knife blade and then lift them gently into your bottle of sea water. And perhaps that might be the way to write this book -- to open the page and to let the stories crawl in by themselves. "---- Ibid
10/10/96
Note from the Author: Haven't put in links to the other chapters yet.
From Richard Katz's Skating Unrinked book, published in paperback by HarperCollinsWest in 1994. Or was it '95? If you are not reading this on a screen, stop reading and head to www.Amazon.com. Thanx. Richard Katz = katz@frogojt.com. email
Back to Richard Katz's Homepage
If you want to go back to the Table of Contents of Skating Unrinked, Back to TOC