365 days of images - - Day 9- Jan. 8, 2021 - Linda's Intuitive Images LMH -- Cannery Row

This morning I headed straight to the ocean from my apartment.  The light was golden, the waves were big and I spotted a whale as soon as I got to the shore.  I chased the whale, running up the coastal trail, it was  swimming very close to the shore.  The blow was heart shaped so I am guessing it was a gray whale.  I never caught an image but it got the morning off to a good start.  What I noticed this morning is that the people that were out, all seemed to be reaching out to each other.  Usually the morning people seem quite to themselves, but this crowd seemed to be taken with the whale and they were talking.  A young man shared he had just started swimming in the ocean, lots of good mornings and even a compliment on my camera.  A side note, everyone was following the mask and distancing rules. 

I watched the sun rise and I headed toward Cannery Row.  I love Cannery Row, esp. when it is early and not crowded.  The history takes me in, I can feel what it must have once been.

I visited the Harbor Seals but there were only a couple on the beach.  I did catch this one with a sweet face.

“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gambler and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen" and he would have meant the same thing.”
― John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

Behind the buildings on Cannery Row, there are places that you can see the bay.   The ocean flows in and beats the wood that holds the building up off the rocks.  You can see the history of the canneries under there, large concrete storage areas, metal and wood that have been there since the days that they were bringing sardines in.   I was taking images when I looked down and spotted an otter looking up at me from under the water.

Many of the buildings remain the same.  There is a blend of old and new.

The cormorant is amused by its own shadow.

Some history sits untouched and as it was before.

The row was full of wonderful characters.  Kalisa Moore known as the Queen of Cannery Row ran the La Ida Restaurant.

I've had a crush on Doc Ricketts every since I read Cannery Row.  I find Doc to be one of John Steinbeck's most romantic characters.  I often think of him gathering his specimens from the tidal pools.  When I look at his lab, I like to imagine what it must have been inside.  Marine biologist, writer and friend of John Steinbeck is remembered all over the Row.

“Doc tips his hat to dogs as he drives by and the dogs look up and smile at him.”
― John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

There are murals along the coastal trail that depict the history of cannery row.

I enjoyed my walk, it is always fun to visit Cannery Row, I headed back down the coastal trail back toward home.  I have to admit, I think this challenge is expanding the way I am looking at things, trying to notice the new, see things differently and enjoying where I am, right now at this very moment.

For Phil:

I love and miss you

everyday