Monterey was exciting for 2 reasons...
1. I had never been there before...and I LOVE to venture through new cities!
2. My cousin Kelene lives in Monterey and works as something-very-scientific at the world famous Monterey Bay Aquarium!!! When I told her we would be driving through her neck of the woods, she was thrilled! She made arrangements to comp our entrance into the aquarium, and she had a whole morning planned for us with behind the scenes tours and such.
We arrived in Monterey about an hour before we were to meet up with my cousin, and that gave us a perfect amount of time to explore Canary Row (downtown Monterey). I totally fell in love with this city! It is GORGEOUS! In fact, of all the coastal stops we made on our vacation, Monterey was my very fave!
It was finally time to meet up with cousin Kelly!!! :0)
Once we were in the aquarium, we first got to take a tour of my cousin's "office"...she is a GENIUS!!!...
Then, she took us to a few of the exhibits that "normal" people get to go to...
...these are thousands of sardines swimming in a circle...SO COOL in person!!!!...
My very favorite was the jelly fish exhibit...
...and more specifically, I was so totally in awe of these teeny-tiny electric jelly fish...
After all of that, we got to go behind the scenes and look at some baby sharks...
...and my cousin arranged for the kids to get to do one of the daily sea turtle feedings!!!...
And then finally, while my cousin was having to do some actual lab work (without us), she asked her fellow-genius-scientist-co-worker to take us on a tour of the quarantine...
...we got to see all kinds of cool things in those tanks!...
...sometimes we saw sea otters...
...and other times we saw crustaceans, and sea cucumbers...
We had SO MUCH FUN at the aquarium, and we felt so honored that my cousin would give us the ultimate hook-up during our stay!
After our morning at the aquarium we went to lunch at Bubba Gump's on Canary Row with my cousin and a couple of her co-workers. I don't have any pictures of that experience, but we had a great time, and the food was more than "decent." I have always wanted to go to that restaurant, and so I am happy to be able to check that off of my list. :0)
After lunch, we continued our journey down Interstate 1...the drive was gorgeous! We had this outside of the passenger window...
...and this outside of the driver-side window...
It was just so stinkin' pretty!
We were headed for San Simeon where we would stay the night on Day 5.
On this 3+ hour drive, we continued our game of TV trivia, we blasted some 80's music, and I eventually sucomed to my husband's mission to have me memorize the 50 state capitols...that "mission" would be a 2-part process that would continue on our next drive as well.
Hello San Simeon!!!...we look forward to exploring your historic castle tomorrow!
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