In Love with Carmel....The dog friendliest place in the world.

Hey!
Here is a positive Post for once!

So this weekend I kidnapped Coffee (my dog) and Carlos (my husband) and drove towards Big Sur. I had never been to Big Sur or to Carmel. I had not really heard of Carmel so I just expected it to be one of these suburb little towns with hardly anyone in sight. But we drove and stayed at this little dog friendly hotel called the Carmel Fireplace Inn Bed & Breakfast at 4th @ San Carlos St Carmel, CA....
I truly wasn't expecting much out of the town or the hotel but when we got there I was really happy. The room was spacious, it did after all had a real fireplace, and the bathroom was well separated from the bedroom area.... At first Coffee was confused of why we were staying in this place, and he sniffed every inch of it. I was so impressed that he had absolutely NO problems with going to the bathroom so we can finally say that he is truly completely house trained!!!!! YAY!
After arriving at the hotel we walked around town with Coffee. As usual he was a sensation. Everyone wanted to know his name, what type of dog he was, and if they could pet him.

What I was completely surprised about was the level of dog friendliness in this town! WOW! Everyone had a dog of some kind. There was a dog somewhere in almost every little store. And then the best dog store I've ever seen yet, "Diggidy Dog". This one only compares to the dog store in the 4th street mall in Berkeley. Diggidy Dog is bigger though, has a lot more sweaters, shirts, bowls etc... etc... Almost all the restaurants were dog friendly. We heard from another couple yorkie owner that there is even a restaurant that allows the dog to eat with you. The dog eats their own food while you eat yours. We didn't get to go but we went to another two and Coffee sat right by us wondering why we were not paying attention to him (still needs a little training in this area). Coffee met his first female yorkie. Her name was Piper and she was half Coffee's age even though she was 1 years old (Coffee is 17 weeks). She was very cute but she scared Coffee away because she ran to him and jumped him. She was really happy to see him. Coffee is not into aggressive chics so...He walked away wondering what psycho was that....

The town was sooooo well planned. I mean if I had to use three words to describe the town I would say "sub/urban walking"!!!
Basically everything you see there is first floor= little restaurant/boutique/antique store, 2nd floor or back= little hotel/bed and breakfast/lodge. There were a bunch of galleries, cafe, bookstores, furniture stores etc etc. There were also Victorian yet refurbished houses so they all looked at least cute. Everything was clean, no garbage, no broken streets... The beach was 5-10 blocks away. It was like one of those beach towns in LA but a little more formal looking.

On Sunday we drove to Big Sur. I wanted to hike a little and see a waterfall or two. Unfortunately a lot of parks were closed and the only park we found open didn't accept dogs in it. But we took pictures of the beaches, and mountains, and cliffs towering over the deep blue copper ocean either way. I guess I can find my favorite blue in the ocean here too after all. It was also fun to imagine if only for a few seconds, what it would be like to live in one of those huge mansions on top of the cliffs that towered the beaches and ocean.....

On the way back we hit traffic....A trip that should have taken maximum 3 hours took us about 5-6 hours. We played alphabet. Coffee was happy to be home where everything smells the way he left it, trust me he checked.