Monterey madness

As part of our new effort to take advantage of what California has to offer before we move to Michigan, we took a trip to Monterey Saturday. Scott, Sarah, and Scott's friends Zig and Teresa from college were able to join us. It was a gorgeous sunny day, the jellyfish were pulsing, and we even found parking!

We spent most of the day at the aquarium. The jellyfish exhibit was quite cool, as hopefully gets conveyed in some of the photos. We were lucky enough to get there during the otters' feeding time, so they were doing some tricks and getting trained to be used to their handlers. And of course, we got to see some giant tuna swimming around looking less delicious than on an open-faced sandwich. This aqurium is unique because they pump water directly from the bay for some of their exhibits. So a lot of the stuff growing in those exhibits is random life that came in the water as spores.

We also got to pet a sea cucumber (suprisingly pleasant) and see a giant octopus. The octopus was totally hamming it up. It had turned bright red and was going back and forth in the tank right up against the glass.