Sunday, June 26, 2011

A Day at Monterey

Yesterday we decided to go to drive 2 hours south to the tourist destination of Monterey. I knew this was going to be a great trip when all I could think about on the drive down was where can we go tonight so I can have fries and gravy? and then when we went for lunch, due to Subway not having a bathroom, we had to go to KFC. Wouldn't you know it, KFC has fries and you can order a side of gravy! What a great start to our trip!
When we were all full of poutine (minus the cheese curds), we went to our main destination of the day, the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Although pretty pricey, it was definitely worth it! Here is a picture of us on the outlook patio.
One of our favorite exhibits was the Kelp Forest. I almost got sea sick standing in front of the giant aquarium watching the kelp and the fish sway back and forth with the flow of the water. It was the strangest feeling but was an amazing perspective. We spent hours staring through the windows of aquariums like this and spotting all the different types of fish, especially taking not of the ones we ate the night before when we went out for sushi ( don't worry it was all cooked stuff).
Here is me making a fish face in front of the Kelp Forest. Notice the shark to my right? The biggest mystery to me was how the stopped the sharks from eating the fish they shared the aquarium with. My only explanation is that they watched Finding Nemo and took the pledge that "Fish are Friends. Not Food."

Another highlight of the aquarium was the jellyfish. I never knew jellyfish came in so many colors and some even have flashing lights throughout them. They are pretty cool.

This is my jellyfish face. Similar to a fish face but more of an "O" formation :)
The next exhibit we went to was the sea horse exhibit. Sea horses are actually pretty neat too. Each aquarium was like an I-spy game. In this picture there are 3 sea horses. Can you find them all?

Part of the sea horse exhibit were the sea dragons. We never knew that these creatures even existed! They are the coolest looking things ever!

These may look like plants floating in the water but really they are leaf sea dragons!

After spending hours of enjoyment at the aquarium we walked down Cannery row.

To make our wonderful day even more wonderful it just so happened that there was a Ghirardelli on Cannery Row! My favorite dessert/treat ever is at Ghirardelli. Sean was even willing to go without his salt water taffy so that we could get these wonderful chocolate creations. My favorite is called the Nob Hill Chill. It is like a cross between a chocolate milkshake and a chocolate sunday. It is pretty much amazing.

Sean's chocolate Sunday was pretty good too.


After our afternoon snack we went on the famous "17 mile drive" around Pebble Beach. Pebble Beach is a private residence area with a bunch of golf courses, multi-million dollar homes and beautiful beaches and wildlife. It was a pretty foggy day and I'm sure it would also be beautiful with sunshine and blue sky but it was still nice. Here are our pictures from the drive.



Bird Rock

You may not be able to tell if you don't look closely, but there were a bunch of seals on this beach. Apparently they come here to have their pups. A lot of them were still pretty young and playing around. It was fun to watch them.

The Lone Tree. This is supposedly a famous icon. The tree is 250 years old and represents resilience. I guess it is one rugged tree.

The End. That was our trip! Hope you all enjoyed the update of our weekend.

Don't worry, I know I need to post tummy pictures so everyone can see how big the baby is getting now that I am approaching the half way mark. You can expect those to be coming soon :)