Monterey Chronicles - Cannery Row

Pretty much the first thing we did on Saturday afternoon after driving down to Monterey itself was to go to Cannery Row. As my brother explained, and as we could see perfectly well once we were there ourselves, Cannery Row is the particular "tourist" area of the city (well, one of, at any rate), with a large number of food and touristy shopping options. Plus the Monterey Aquarium, which I have not been to yet. We'll get to that soon enough.

I probably should have been paying more attention to things like the area's history... from what I remember, from the 1930s about through the 1950s, Cannery Row was a major fishing and, well, canning area. That came to a halt when they ran out of fish, since these were the days before controls on fishing really existed. John Steinbeck wrote books about this area, too, in addition to works like Grapes of Wrath.

... That's a really crappy account of the history. I really wasn't paying attention. *sigh*

Well, anyway! We ended up stopping in several different stores and attractions along Cannery Row, although mostly I just bought candy and chocolate. There were probably a half-dozen stores that we passed devoted to candy, and one in particular that was devoted solely to Ghirardelli chocolate. Most of it is already gone, sadly.

There was also a cool little mirror maze attraction that we saw, where you had to find your way through a practically endless collection of mirrors. Seeing someone, or the exit, didn't actually mean that someone was anywhere near you. Oh, and they used strobe lights and occasionally just turned them off entirely to make it harder. My brother and I actually were making a good deal of progress toward memorizing the correct route entirely, though.

The same place had a laser challenge thing, where you had to work your way through a hallway without touching any of the laser beams. Kind of like a spy movie thing with the lasers that you can't touch without sounding an alarm. That was completely impossible. I'd be absolutely certain that I was nowhere near the laser beam, and then the little buzzer would go off as I went right through it.

So yeah. Cannery Row. I'm given to understand that it's fun. If you're ever in Monterey, go check it out.