Rules, Rules & More Rules

 When I was writing my previous post about the School Rules, it reminded me of my last trip to San Francisco for work back in 2018. 

We were there for 2 weeks so had a weekend with a car at our disposal, I had a look at the map because nobody had planned anything and thought about a trip down the coast on the Saturday and then San Francisco City on the Sunday. 

After Breakfast on the Saturday we headed South Down the Freeway towards or first stop in "Santa Cruz", in some ways it reminded me of trips to Durban in the summer, and although it was barely Spring when we were there I could just imagine what the Summer's must be like - packed to capacity.  

Not much of the amusement park was open, but we could still walk around and browse the shops.

Scenes from the Movie Grease came to mind, looking at the Amusement park and Games.

It was great entertainment they had a Clam chowder competition and there was probably enough clam chowder to feed the entire state! 

After a few hours we climbed back in the car and headed further South, we arrived in a town called "Carmel-by-the-Sea" and to be honest I had never heard of the place.  Wow, what a quaint little town and so quirky.   I learnt so much about this town.   Not only was Clint Eastwood once the mayor of the town, but their oldest living resident was Doris Day who at the time was 96, she would have turned 100 this year. 

Getting back to the subject of this post about "Rules" - Carmel had the oddest rules, 

Some of these Odd Laws are:

The municipal code prohibits wearing shoes having heels taller than 2 inches (5.1 cm) or with a base of less than 1 square inch, unless the wearer has obtained a permit for them.

No Sidewalks in Residential areas

No Street lights in Residential areas

No Commercial development on the beach

Two story height limitation

No Chain restaurants (you won't find a McDonalds there ... yay)

No Addresses on the houses - residents collect their mail from the post office 

No billboards

And the Nr. 1 Odd Rule was:  No ice cream could be sold or eaten ????

The reason was that ice cream tends to fall off cones, creating a sticky gooey mess on the streets.  So basically it was outlawed.  That law was abolished by Clint Eastwood. 

Some very famous people lived here, including John Steinbeck, Bing Crosby and Joan Fontaine among others and you can see why!   I could live there any day! 

But what a beautiful clean and pristine town with the quirkiest houses you have ever soon!  Just take a look here.