365 days of images - - Day 249- Sept. 05, 2021 - Linda's Intuitive Images LMH -- Doc Rickets - Historic Crush and Tidal Pools

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I first learned of Doc Ricketts when I read the John Steinbeck book, "Cannery Row".  When I read it I fell in love with the character of Ed Ricketts.  This morning as I headed for my walk, I spotted a window with "Doc" in the Cannery Row Antique Mall.  That set the theme of the day for me.

There is a statue of him at Drake and Wave St., he usually has flowers in his hand.

Ed Ricketts was a scientist who collected and studied the animals and plant life in and around the tide pools.  A romantic hero in my eyes.  He was friends with John Steinbeck and was in several of Steinbeck's books.

Right before Phil and I moved to the area we watched the movie, "Cannery Row" with Nick Nolte and Debra Winger.  The movie caught the spirit and feel of the row.  Phil and I loved it and when we got here we fell in love with Cannery Row.  I'm smiling thinking of some of our adventures.  

I often spend time at Doc's Biological Lab, it sits between the Aquarium and the Intercontinental Hotel.  Behind the hotel there is a great area for viewing the ocean.

Behind the lab, sits the ocean and there are large cubes where he stored his larger animals.

 Ricketts was killed in a car, hit by a train on March 8, 1948.

There are still a few remains of the old canneries on the row.

I walked around Cannery Row, just trying to imagine what it would have been like when Ed Ricketts and John Steinbeck walked the streets.

The aquarium has a great exhibit showing the canneries and the history of Ed Ricketts.

Then to one of my favorite places, the Great Tidal Pools in Pacific Grove.  The tide was coming in but there were still some pools to check out.  

As I walked from one pool to the next I spotted a couple of black tail deer.

As I was looking around, I spotted this decorated rock, I left it there for the next person.  I took in the message and remembered all the times Phil found these rocks.  After he found them, we often re hid them in the gardens at the hospital.

For Phil

I miss you!  I know you would have loved this blog.

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