 |
| photo by Bill Slavin |
Early in his career, Bill worked on a consulting job for the U.S. Post Office, with the result that for the next couple of years, whenever we visited a new town, we would drive around to the back of the post office to view the loading docks. Yes, a quirky thing to do on vacation. This past weekend, we spent a relaxing time in Pacific Grove and Carmel, walking along the Coastal Recreational Trail, taking photos of waves crashing into the rocks along the way, and watching the seagulls, pelicans, and plovers fly about the sandy beaches.
We spent the rest of our time looking for comfortable places to sit since we brought a stack of books and magazines to read. We walked up and down the Pacific Grove streets to see what had changed since our last visit and then headed to one of our favorite places, the town's bookstore and cafe, The Bookworks on Lighthouse Avenue. We wandered through the bookstore with its good selection of books, including a wall of classics aimed at younger readers with Winnie the Pooh, Mary Poppins, and John Steinbeck nestled together. We found a couple of interesting books to add to our waiting stack, walked back into the cafe, grabbed a cup of coffee, and opened up a book to read for a while.
Besides the post office, bookstores are always on our list of things to do while we are out of town. We have found wonderful independent stores such as Bookshop Santa Cruz and also the smaller Two Birds Books in Santa Cruz, as well as a local coffee house, Cat and Cloud. In Carmel, we head to River House Books, which is right next door to Carmel Valley Roasting Company, a good place for a cup of coffee. The original owners of the bookstore recently retired, but the store was purchased by the Lulu Chocolates owners, right next door to the cafe, who have kept the store's tradition of books we can't find anywhere else. How can a reader lose with coffee, chocolate, and books all together in one place?
On our way home to San Francisco, we stopped in Menlo Park at Cafe Borrone, a large cafe next to a sunlit plaza with plenty of seats under colorful umbrellas. Right next to the cafe is Kepler's Books, a store we frequented when we were first married and living in Mountain View nearby. Kepler's is still the best with its large selection of interesting books and themes to choose from. Within the store, tables were set up with displays of banned books, best books from several different decades, as well as shelves of manga with their complex illustrations.
Bill and I sat at Borrone and joked about how our vacations used to be full of physical adventures, such as skiing, cycling, and sailing, but this time we realized we needed a rest from our vagabond existence of the last couple of years. Sitting in a comfortable chair with a good book, a piece of chocolate or pastry, and a coffee was just the right antidote for us this past weekend. We didn't even drive around the back of the local post office.
.jpeg)
In Santa Cruz:
https://twobirdsbooks.com/about-us/
In Pacific Grove:
In Carmel:
https://carmelcoffeeroasters.com
https://thecrossroadscarmel.com/shopping/river-house-books/
In Menlo Park:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for commenting! I love hearing from readers. I answer each one.
I do not post Anonymous comments because of problems with spammers.