Breakfast gets delivered right to our door in a little cooler at the Svendsgaard’s Inn.  Isn’t that fantastic!  With a newspaper and dog biscuits for Koira too.  You get to unwrap your breakfast surprise!  The coffee cake was amazing.  I wonder what we will get tomorrow morning!

After our full breakfast and a little caffeine, we were raring to go.  Well, everyone except Koira.  She needed a little convincing to get out of bed this morning, but once we showed her the leash she decided she might like to see a little of Carmel.  Well, explore it with her nose anyway.  After the “Poodle Parade,” every corner was a sign post to be read by her nose.  It was a little slow going trying to drag the dog, but eventually the “news” got old and she walked a little quicker.  She even got to do a little shopping.  Jeremy and I found Carmel t-shirts and Koira (Jenny) found a little sea otter toy.

We stopped at The Carmel Coffee House cafe for a little rest and a coffee halfway through our tour of downtown Carmel.  Excellent coffee and a beautiful little courtyard to just hang out in and people watch.  Its amazing how many different languages we heard being spoken today.  Carmel attracts people from all over the world.  We heard Dutch, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian and Japanese.  And lots of Australian and English accents as well.  And in every language, we got “Oh, what a cute dog!”  Who needs a purebred poodle?!

We did a little more wandering around downtown after our coffee break.  Jeremy found his favourite store in every town – the candy store!  He actually came out with gourmet fudge and chocolate covered orange peels.  The first fudge we tried was caramel and sea salt.  It may sound a little odd for fudge but it was amazing!  Something about caramel and sea salt really works.

After having dessert first, we decided we should have lunch.  One of the restaurants that had been featured on www.bringfido.com was on the way back to our hotel, so we decided to give it a try.  The restaurant is called Forge in the Forest.  Although we did not get to sit in the “forge” patio area, we were ushered to a very nice partially covered patio on the other side of the restaurant.  There were already three, very large but well-behaved dogs there with their “people.”  Koira did very well, and, once again we were all made to feel very welcome.  We had excellent clams and mussels in a white wine sauce with fresh-baked buns for a starter and a caramelized onion and roast duck pizza for our main dish.  Jeremy confirmed that he had is “odd dish” quota for the day with the “duck” pizza, but it was really good.

At the end of our meal, we met one of the other dogs in the patio area – Gerard.  He was, by far, the largest poodle that we had ever seen!  He was a gentle giant, though.  His owner told us he had been part of the “Poodle Parade” on Saturday and he had been the largest poodle there, at “over a hundred pounds”.  His brother was also part of the parade and was the second largest poodle in the parade.  We had no idea that poodles could be so massive!  He could wear Koira as a beret!  Thankfully, he was more interested in our leftover “duck” pizza.

Once again we had to roll ourselves back to the hotel . . . only to turn around and head back out to visit Carmel Beach State Park.  All the walking is good for us . . . especially after all the rich meals and sweets.  We walked, downhill, through residential areas to the beach.  There are some beautiful and very expensive real estate in Carmel.  We did not see Clint Eastwood or Jay Leno on the way.  Jeremy had the camera ready just in case.  We probably saw some very rich people but we did not know who they were.  And I am sure that is the way they like it here.

The beach was a little busier than Lincoln City and had almost as many dogs on it as people.  We still had our own space, though, and a nice quiet stroll along the beach.  We saw Pebble Beach from a distance.  I am sure that is about as close as we will ever get to being able to golf there.  We can dream, though.

After our stroll on the beach, I was the most wet and sandy, not Koira.  I am afraid that I broke the golden rule of beach-walking and turned my back on the surf.  Thankfully, the water is a little warmer here.  I had to walk back through ritzy downtown Carmel in wet pants and sandy feet, though.  And uphill all the way!  What a day!