no sleep till brooklyn: day two

alright, quick correction from day one...we actually drove 441 miles yesterday. today the odometer reades 512, and that is largely because we just did a whole lot of exploring today. our hotel is in carmel, which is like 4 1/2 seconds away from monterey which is quite an interesting little town.
so anyway, let me start from the beginning of today. we woke up surprisingly early, and i say surprisingly because when i woke up, i was surprised that i had even fallen asleep. it was one of those nights when we fell asleep in eachother's arms at like 10:30 and stayed that way until we woke up. so, we woke up, chilled a little, went for a swim, had some coffee. i decorated the room for suz's birthday, even though her birthday isn't until tomorrow, we wanted to celebrate in a hotel room that was actually in california. so i decorated the room and gave her a birthday tiara.
after we snacked on some road-trip goodies we hit the road again for a little exploratory adventure. we tried going through some of carmel and ended up getting stuck in the tourist district, which really sucked. it put both of us in a mood that made us want to retreat from civilization. so, we went with that vibe and decided to check out the local mission.
the carmel mission is part of the original el camino real, which means the way of the king. what it is basically is a trail of missions that go up the california coast. each mission is a one day horse ride from the previous one and this one was actually the second one built, which is kinda weird cuz its so far north. anyway though, the dude who came up with the idea of building all these missions is named junipero sera, who is actually buried under the altar at this mission. the place is filled with all sorts of crazy vibes. we knelt and prayed in front of a shrine to mary of bethlehem that pope john paul II knelt when he visited the US. so, the mission was cool.
after the mission we drove around trying to find a place where we could find some quick food so we could hit the road. we wanted to take the 1 back south so we could revisit some of the majestic beauty of california one last time before we left the state. but, finding food was actually pretty difficult for some reason. probably mostly because we wanted to avoid the tourist areas and because we had no idea where we were going. anyway, eventually we found an international deli which was actually basically just an awesome greek restaurant. the lady there chatted us up a while after we finished our food and we found out her son is going to SDSU. we told her we were road-trippin all the way across the states and she snuck us a free baklava. after that we wanted some coffee so we found a little hole-in-the-wall cafe called miriam's cafe. miriam just happened to be working at the store that day, and we got to talking to her a little bit too. she is originally from humbolt county. in my two short years in california, i have come to understand that if you are originally from humbolt county you are, as a matter of course, a major pothead. miriam appeared not to be the exception to the rule, but i didn't get an official confirmation because we had to hit the road.
once we were satiated and caffeinated we were on the road again. we drove south and saw some pretty great stuff, some of which might actually make it to my blog one day. i doubt that the digital camera really captured the intensity of what we were looking at, but it did its best, so i commend it for that. now, we have made it back to the hotel and are relaxing and getting ready for the long drive ahead of us. tomorrow we are off to provo, utah...woo hoo. we will officially be saying goodbye to california and heading east.
updates will be soon to come. i know you're on the edge of your seat.