A day at the aquarium

It's early morning and I can't sleep. It's free calling time for cell phone modem, so I thought that I'd post about yesterday's trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and upload some images...

We left the campground for the aquarium at about 9:00 in the morning. Parking was easy to find and since we were a bit early, we went to a little restaurant and had breakfast.

The aquarium is very impressive. It cost us about $80.00 for all 4 of us to visit ($25.00 for adults and $16.00 for kids). We spent about 3 or 4 hours exploring and playing. There were lots of hands on things for the kids to do.

Everyone's favorite exibit was the jellyfish in the drifter's gallery near the outer bay area. There's just something very interesting about the way that jelly fish move and the way the lighting and music in the area immersed you in their world...

The outer bay had some of the biggest fish I have ever seen. I don't know if the glass makes them appear larger or not, but some of those fish looked twice the size of the people watching them. There were a couple of divers in the tank that appared to be working on something - they looked small in comparison to the size of the fish swimming around them too, so I think that the fish were actually that big...

The girls spent quite a bit of time at the touch pools. They really enjoyed being able to touch the little crabs, starfish, sea slugs and a wide variety of plants. There was a glass tunnel nearby that would have a simulated tide surge splash over it. Lots of kids would scream as the water rushed out and over the glass like a big wave hit or something.

All in all we had a good time. Becky and I are still getting over a cold that the kids brought home from school a few days before we left, so we're a bit low on energy...

Today we have many hours of driving to reach Los Angeles. We're staying flexible, but we'd like to be close by late afternoon so we can get an early start on Disneyland tomorrow. If all goes well, I'll be able to post an update tonight.