Light and Water

Here we are in Cannery Row in Monterey, California.  Monterey is a really beautiful little city, right on the Pacific Ocean with cute old fashioned houses and a great aquarium and the world famous jazz festival.  We arrived after a five hour drive from Los Angeles, checked into our hotel (William was happy to see a small pool at the front and Anthony was gratified to realize the wifi is strong) and went straight to the aquarium!  We had a nice lunch, albeit in a cafeteria, which is the bane of Mike's existence, and then set about to explore the aquarium.  It is smaller than Vancouver's, but it doesn't have whales or sea lions performing, which, to me, is better.  You can go out on a viewing deck and see wild sea otters frolicking in the ocean.  They are attracted to Monterey Bay because there is lots of food here for them and it is relatively sheltered.  The otters we saw were in a harem of females who are visited from time to time by one male, who impregnates them all and then goes on his way.  It seems to work out for all of them!  The aquarium staff is out there to answer questions and lend you binoculars.  They have all sorts of rescued animals and all sorts of beautiful displays -- jellyfish that seem to go on forever and a whole section of seahorses of all different kinds, even sea dragons!  Anthony took lots of pictures, but I can't figure out how to get them off his phone.  This is a picture of the outside part of the aquarium.

 

 

There is a shorebird area with all sorts of lovely shorebirds, like killdeer and plovers, all of whom are endangered because of people's encroachment on their habitat.  If only we could leave animals some space to do what they need to do.   They have huge areas for sea turtles and sharks and tuna and my favourite part was the  octopus area.  They have two octopuses (or is it octopi?) and one of them was bright red and flowing along the glass with his eye fixed on all of us out on the other side of the glass.  He was so graceful and elegant.  The aquarium person said that the octopus is very intelligent (I've heard that it is as intelligent as a three year old person) and can recognize individual people by touch and changes colours when its emotions change  I wonder what red means.  We had a great time and the icing on the cake was that they have jazz musicians from the jazz festival play from six to eight on Saturdays so we were treated to an excellent quintet of musicians and they served wine, beer and pop and even snacks while you listened to the music.  How Monterey, huh?

 

Tomorrow we really start our trek home.  We will drive 6 1/2 hours to Yreka (I don't even know how to say the name of the place, but it is in "gold" country).   It is halfway to Portland, which will be our home the next day.  We have had a terrific time with lots of memorable experiences, but it hasn't been all smooth sailing.  The thing I hate most about travelling is the part where you arrive in the place and you're tired and you want to just flop down and relax, but you have to find some place to eat or order room service or make some sort of decision.  You can't just heat up some leftovers from the fridge.  And I hate always having to eat in restaurants and look at the menu and pick something.  I like eating in restaurants once in a while, but not every night. 

 

But soon I'll be home and thinking "oh, what am I going to make tonight?"   You can't win.