Monterey’s Cannery Row Block Party annual event is a crowd-pleaser includes continuous live music, live animals, balloon artist, stilt walker, ice cream eating contest and more!
When: 11am-5pm
Where: Cannery Row
How much: Free
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I mean, do squid around… cause there’s gonna be oceans of family fun at Monterey’s first annual Clam Chowder and Calamari Festival, May 26-28.
Clam Chowder and Calamari?
Yep. Let it never be said that the city of Monterey has trouble finding excuses to celebrate. This free festival at the Custom House Plaza at Fisherman’s Wharf will feature music and entertainment, arts and crafts, marine exhibits, cooking demos, and plenty of food and drink. (Besides soup and squid, there will be fish and chips, pasta, sandwiches, strawberry shortcake, caramel apples, cookies, ice cream and more.)
Beer, wine and margaritas will be available, and three live bands will play each day, including John “Broadway” Tucker, the Cachugua Playboys and Red Beans and Rice.
Hours are 11am – 7pm Saturday and Sunday and 11am – 6pm Monday.
Let’s Go Truckin’! Just in case you haven’t heard, Food Trucks are in.
In, in, in… yes, mobile munchies are the latest rage, and on May 12, the first ever “Monterey Street Food Fest” will take place at the Fairgrounds from noon to 6pm.
From cupcakes to Cuban cuisine, there’ll be something for every palate. But if the thought of yummy gourmet and international street food isn’t enough to get you to the Monterey Fairgrounds… go for the music.
Because “The Money Band” will play from noon to 2pm, followed by “Triple Threat” until 6pm. (The Money Band has a fair number of groupies at Monterey Bay Property Management, and they guarantee that from “Love Shack” to “What I Say?”—this band will get the crowd rocking.)
The Fairgrounds are located at 2004 Fairground Road, Monterey. Admission to the Street Food Fest is free.
Another cool new exhibit is opening at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
The magical world of jellies—”graceful, dancing drifters that pulse and glow, flash colorful lights and often pack a powerful sting”—will come alive in a blaze of psychedelic glory when “The Jellies Experience” opens March 31.
The exhibit promises to envelop visitors in a sensory extravaganza: from a room that immerses you in a living moon jelly swarm to exhibits of jellies that pulse like living rainbows.
This 7,000 square foot, $3.5 million exhibit focuses on animals that have “no heads, hearts, brains, bones or true eyes”— yet have survived for hundreds of millions of years (and are considered among the ocean’s major predators).
“The Jellies Experience” is included with aquarium admission: $34.95 adult; $29.95 senior (over 65) and student (full-time college, with I.D.); $19.95 children and the disabled; under 3 free.
The Aquarium is open every day except Christmas, and it’s located on historic Cannery Row in Monterey, right behind our office. Stop by and say hi!
Holy Smokes, who knew that Cheech Marin (of Cheech and Chong fame) was also an art aficionado?
An avid collector of Chicano art, Marin will exhibit “Chicanitas”—small paintings from his collection—at the Museum of Monterey (MOM) through April 1, with an opening reception December 10.
Subtitled “size doesn’t matter,” the collection includes 65 works (all under 16″x16″) from established and emerging Chicano artists in a variety of media: abstracts, portraits, landscapes, and photo-realism.
The actor/comedian will treat members of MOM to a private reception and walk through from 4-5 pm, with a public reception following from 5-7 pm.
Admission is $10 general and $5 for children under 12. The Museum is located at 5 Custom House Plaza and is open Tues.-Sat. 10am-5pm and Sundays from noon to 5pm.
Saddle up, vaqueros: the 13th Annual Monterey Cowboy Poetry and Music Festival rides into town Dec. 2-4 with a line up of some of the world’s very best cowboy poets and musicians.
Monterey has a rich Western heritage, and cowboy poetry – classic storytelling in rhyme and meter – is a folk art that dates back to the early cattle drives.
Things kick off Friday night at 7 pm with “Singing and Swinging” and run nonstop all weekend. There will be jam and open mic sessions (if you are longing to share)—and don’t miss the Sunday morning “Cowboy Church” to benefit the Salvation Army.
A special “Christmas Art and Gear” show, featuring antiques and collectables, custom tack and saddles, Western clothing, paintings, photography, and an array of crafts—from hand-tooled leather to engraved silver—runs concurrently.
All events take place at the Monterey Conference Center at One Portola Plaza. Festival passes are $220, and tickets are available for individual events. Giddyap!
Presented by the Monterey Bay Chapter of the United Nations Association, this three day festival features films from countries as diverse as Iraq and Indonesia, and includes numerous Academy Award nominees.
The festival closes with “Gasland,” a film about the controversial practice of natural gas and oil extraction called “franking.” All screenings are at the historic Golden State theater in downtown Monterey at 417 Alvarado St. Admission to each session is only $5, and students with I.D. are free.
Street parking is available evenings, and the city of Monterey is offering free parking in the garage behind Wells Fargo (at Franklin and Tyler) on Saturday afternoon (take a ticket when you enter, and say you attended the International Film Festival when you exit).
Humanity Explored – 7 min
The Warriors of Qiugang – 39 min – China
Benghazi Rising – 53 min – Libya
Triangle Returns – 9 min – US, Bangladesh
The Price of Sex – 73 min – Moldova, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, Dubai
Poster Girl – 38 min – US, Iraq
Which Way Home – 63 min – Mexico, US, Guatemala, Honduras
Blood in the Mobile – 82 min – Congo, Finland
The 10 Conditions of Love – 54 min – China, US
Strangers No More– 40 min – Israel
Killing in the Name – 39 min – Jordan, Indonesia
Sarabah – 60 min – Senegal, Germany
The Dark Side of Chocolate – 46 min – Ivory Coast, Mali
Sun City Picture House – 27 min – Haiti
Gasland – 106 min – US
The Monterey chapter of the United Nations Association is dedicated to the same concerns that led to the creation of the parent body: human rights for all, combating world poverty, resolving conflicts through peaceful means, and protecting the world’s environment.
The town of Pacific Grove is straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting, and so are these upcoming baking and home-canning workshops at the Happy Girl Kitchen Company.
Happy Girl—purveyor of organic “food that feeds your soul”—is our source for all things wonderful in the world of jams and preserves: from pickled vegetables to luscious fruit preserves (and summertime strawberry lemonade). It’s a great place to pick up a gift, or a light breakfast/lunch.
These hands-on sessions will teach you home-canning techniques so you can preserve and eat local foods year round.
They each include an organic lunch made from local produce—and of course you’ll get to take home an assortment of each recipe.
Each workshop runs from 10 am to 3 pm at at Happy Girl’s store/cafe/kitchen (173 Central Avenue, Pacific Grove), and the fees run from $110-$135 per person.
Everyone knows how important honeybees are—but what about the butterflies?
An essential part of the ecosystem, these delicate, fluttering jewels also pollinate flowering plants— and every autumn a small but determined population of Western Monarchs migrates from Washington and Oregon to Pacific Grove, California: a.k.a. “Butterfly Town, U.S.A.”
You can view these natural wonders October through February at the Monarch Grove Sanctuary, free and open from sunrise to sunset.
But don’t miss the annual Butterfly Parade and Bazaar on Saturday, October 1 (with local schoolchildren dressed in wings) or the Historic Home Tour of classic Victorians on Sunday, October 2.
Looking for a Place to Land?
To commemorate this inspiring natural migration, Monterey Bay Property Management is offering discounted $999 weekly rates at select Pacific Grove rentals between Oct. 1, 2011 and Feb. 29, 2012 (subject to availability, holiday dates excluded, tax and cleaning fees additional).
For more info, contact the little butterfly on the left – reservationist Ashley Magallanes in her first Butterfly Parade, circa 1993.
Ashley@MontereyRentals.com or call (831) 655-7840.
Downtown Monterey is buzzing: a number of new businesses have opened or will open soon (Restaurant 1833, Caffe Trieste, Pinkberry and Starbucks… with more to be announced soon).
Here’s another reason to explore Monterey’s rejuvenated downtown: the weekend of Sept. 30-Oct. 2, the inaugural Art in the Adobes festival will display masterpieces of California art that have been hidden from public view for decades. The venues: some of Monterey’s most historic adobes, including the former home of Robert Louis Stevenson.
Some of California’s greatest painters, sculptors and photographers lived in Monterey in the late 19th Century, producing some of the most important works in the cultural history of the West.
Along with an opportunity to view some of the finest examples of the period, this new festival will feature lectures, live period music, and an opening night reception.
We’re including two free day passes to Art in the Adobes if you book a stay in this one bedroom, one bath penthouse apartment overlooking Monterey Bay that includes the Sept. 30-Oct. 2 weekend. It has a view worth painting—and every accoutrement you need in a “home away from home.”
Email ashley@montereyrentals.com or call 831.655.7840, and ask about the “Art in the Adobes” special.
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