Thursday, March 15, 2012

U.S.A. - Carmel, California - July 1970

 Commercial Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey.

A few days after we'd arrived in Carmel, Keith took us to one of his favourite spots made famous by John Steinbeck,  Cannery Row.    We walked around and he took us to lunch at a rather nice Restaurant on the Wharf... I remember this day very clearly, we ordered sandwiches, which were delicious and as we left Keith left a $5 tip!  This was the first time we'd seen 'tipping', you didn't do it much in Australia or the UK but we'd heard that it was expected in the US.  We only had $18 left, that $5 tip was... I thought at the time... way over the top for three sandwiches!  (Actually I still do think it was over the top).

During the lunch Keith told us we wouldn't be able to get jobs because we didn't have Work Visa's and they took a long time to get.

After we'd lunched and wandered around Keith took us to his bank, he opened an account in our name and put $1,000.00 in it!  He told the Bank Manager to put more in if we'd spent that. 

Keith then took us around to his local shops and told everyone that anything we wanted was to go on his account.

Then he told us to go buy a car and get out of here and see America!

Then he gave us his Petrol (Gas) Charge Card!

Sugar Uncle or WHAT!!!  Wow!  We did not expect this in any way, we'd hit it off with both Keith and Virginia the minute we met them but this was something else...  We were very humbled.



Keith, who'd been a Jackaroo for a while, kept his hand in by helping out a few neighbours by shearing their sheep, David who'd also been a Jackaroo at 'Wollogorang' had sheared the odd sheep as well, David is the first to admit, he wasn't very good at it,  but the two of them helped Allen Griffin of Pebble Beach by shearing his sheep.   I love the photos below... lovely memories :-)



The Lone Cyprus Pine at Pebble beach above and below from Google Maps.



We arrived just in time for one of Keith and Virginia's favourite times of year... the Bach Festival and were lucky to be given tickets for a couple of events. 


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