Between Santa Cruz and Monterey, Hwy-1 loops inland through the farmlands fronting Monterey Bay. Part freeway, part winding two-lane road, Hwy-1 races through, and to be honest there’s not a lot worth stopping for: The beaches can be dreary, and the two main towns, Watsonville and Castroville, are little more than service centers for the local fruit and vegetable packers. Watsonville is still reeling from the 1989 earthquake, which destroyed half of the downtown area, though Castroville—where in 1947, then-unknown Marilyn Monroe reigned as “Miss Artichoke” during Castroville’s Artichoke Festival, still celebrated each September—does have one odd sight: the “World’s Largest Artichoke,” a concrete statue outside a very large fruit stand at the center of town.
Back on the coast, midway along Monterey Bay, the port community of Moss Landing is a busy commercial fishery, with lots of trawlers and packing plants—not to mention pelicans aplenty. Moss Landing sits alongside Elkhorn Slough, the largest wetlands area in Monterey Bay, and is home to the research arm of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, to an obtrusively huge electricity generating plant, and to The Whole Enchilada (831/633-3038), which has spicy seafood and a popular Sunday jazz brunch right on Hwy-1, just south of the power plant.
Much of the bayfront north of Monterey formerly belonged to the U.S. Marine Corps base at Fort Ord. Almost the entire parcel was turned over to the State of California to house the California State University at Monterey Bay, which opened its doors in 1995.
