Monterey

Look - we got canned at Cannery Row!

Tuesday we went to Monterey on a mission to visit the Aquarium and find the adorable sea otter. Thanks to Cynthia (GPS) unit we easily found the public parking ramp. On our way to the aquarium, we were quickly distracted by all the tourist shops selling fudge, magnets, sea otter apparel and everything they could print, paint or embroider Monterey Bay on. $100 later we finally made it to the Aquarium. The Aquarium is fabulous!

Awwwww!!!!

First stop is the sea otter exhibit. Those guys are the cutest wet furballs in the entire Pacific Ocean. Amy has always been fascinated by the sea otter. In fact, she found out she sleeps just like one – one her back with her hands and flippers tucked up. An hour later, we decided to check out the rest of the Aquarium.

Look Mom - Harry Otter!!!

We viewed giant squid, a kelp forest, murre birds diving for food among giant fish and assorted other aquatic life that we could actually see because they provided magnifying glasses. We enjoyed the interactive displays where we touched sea urchin, star fish and whatever else was in the exhibit. The current “special” exhibition is the secret life of sea horses. Well, their life is not so secret after viewing the exhibition. They are adorable and the male actually carries the babies and gives birth. After the excitement of the sea horses, we head to view the jellyfish. They were spectacular. We tried to identify the species that stung Amy in the Cayman Islands. We selected the coolest one.

Purple Stripe Jellyfish

It is called purple stripe of something with purple in it. What, we never said we were marine biologists.

Happy as a clam - again, why are clams happy?

After the Aquarium, we had lunch at the Monterey Crepe Shoppe. It was lovely, all warm cheese, avocado and tomato. Fortified, we head off to the wharf to find more sea life. We find a parking spot and head to the beach. It was a lovely walk but we decided on the way back to take the recreational trail that runs parallel to the beach. Lori’s ankles decide to stop working and we spend some time on a park bench. After the rest, we continue on our quest to find more sea life but at a much slower pace. (Note to Lori – pick up a pair of orthopedic walking shoes). We finally make it to the wharf where to our delight we see sea otters. They are diving and eating and then diving and eating, right in front of us. Well, in the ocean about 30 yards away. We quickly pull out cameras and start clicking away. Well Lori starts clicking with her small digital camera – Amy’s fabulous camera with the zoom lens suddenly decides not to work. Lori shot her pictures blind – in the bright sun you can see what is being displayed on the LCD screen. Amy was able to record them on video but they are much more active in the wild than in a display at the Aquarium. We continued to walk the wharf (Lori hobbles instead of walking) to find more sea life. We find a sea lion floating near a boat but he/she won’t cooperate and pose for pictures. We also are amazed to see a ton of jelly fish visibly swimming in the ocean right next to the pier. On the other side of the wharf we hear barking and are just in time to see a sea lion dive into the ocean and swim toward a boat that was tossing fish scraps into the water. A plethora of pelicans also joined in the buffet. We continued on hoping to find a sea lion sunbathing and we did determine where they were. Unfortunately, Lori’s feet were unable to make the journey in the time span allowed – we only had 20 minutes left on our parking ticket. We vow to return another day with a working camera and working feet.

Cynthia helps us find our way back to Carmel but she likes to recalculate and suddenly she wants me to turn left instead of right and it made for an interesting drive home. We did determine we are about 20 minutes from a California Pizza Kitchen restaurant – good to know. We are now experienced drivers on Highway 1 and we are able to negotiate the rush hour traffic easily and find our way back to our second home in Carmel – Safeway. Lori visits the CVS pharmacy to pick up an ace bandage and more memory cards – we seem to be taking more pictures than usual. We find a spot at Safeway where they have free WiFi in their Starbucks. After we post our blog we head home for grilled cheese and tater tots. Amy is the cook and Lori is the firestarter. We return to the traditional methods of paper, tinder and wood and no more of those fancy firestarters from Duraflame. Fire going, Lori takes a little white pill to take away the pain in her ankles. Magically the food appears and during dinner we view our pictures and video. We again realize we need to take a photography class. But that is the beauty of digital photography, you can take thousands of pictures and only keep the ones you like and delete the others. We take care of our night chore of recharging all of our equipment in preparation of the next day’s adventure. Fire out, we go to sleep dreaming of sea otters.