Monterey Bay Area Pix 2

You might say that today marks the end of our vacation. Tomorrow we start our trip back to New York. We will stop in Salt Lake City for a day and do some sightseeing, but the rest of next week involves long days of driving back home.

This morning we were invited to join Chela and Wes Grant's family for brunch in Santa Cruz. We are honored to be considered part of the family. We left Santa Cruz a little after noon and headed to Monterey. Our primary goal was to stop at the world renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium. The aquarium is at the western end of Cannery Row in Moneterey. Cannery Row consisted of numerous fish processing and canning plants along the Monterey waterfront and was made famous by John Steinbeck in his book, Cannery Row. Steinbeck described the area by as having foul odor and noise. Today the noise on Cannery Row comes from the cash registers ringing in the stores that now occupy the old cannery buildings. To us Cannery Row represents the ultimate beach town souvenir strip. It has all of the shops and restaurants concentrated in a relatively narrow strip. The rest of Monterey did not strike us as "touristy."

Although the Monterey Bay Aquarium is located in Cannery Row, it is not part of the beach strip. The core of the aquarium is one of the old canneries. The resemblance to the rest of cannery row ends there. It has a number exhibits arranged by oceanic habitats and activities geared towards children, such as touch pools. A number of decks overlook Monterey Bay from where you can see Harbor Seals sunning themselves on the rocks below the deck and the kelp forest where, if you are lucky, you can see Sea Otters (we didn't). Because of lighting conditions in the aquarium, photography is difficult and I discarded most of the pictures I took.

Monterey Bay Area
6 August 2006
You might say that today marks the end of our vacation. Tomorrow we start our trip back to New York. We will stop in Salt Lake City for a day and do some sightseeing, but the rest of next week involves long days of driving back home. This morning we were invited to join Chela and Wes Grant's family for brunch in Santa Cruz. We are honored to be considered part of the family. We left Santa Cruz a little after noon and headed to Monterey. Our primary goal was to stop at the world renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium. The aquarium is at the western end of Cannery Row in Moneterey. Cannery Row consisted of numerous fish processing and canning plants along the Monterey waterfront and was made famous by John Steinbeck in his book, Cannery Row. Steinbeck described the area by as having foul odor and noise. Today the noise on Cannery Row comes from the cash registers ringing in the stores that now occupy the old cannery buildings. To us Cannery Row represents the ultimate beach town souvenir strip. It has all of the shops and restaurants concentrated in a relatively narrow strip. The rest of Monterey did not strike us as "touristy." Although the Monterey Bay Aquarium is located in Cannery Row, it is not part of the beach strip. The core of the aquarium is one of the old canneries. The resemblance to the rest of cannery row ends there. It has a number exhibits arranged by oceanic habitats and activities geared towards children, such as touch pools. A number of decks overlook Monterey Bay from where you can see Harbor Seals sunning themselves on the rocks below the deck and the kelp forest where, if you are lucky, you can see Sea Otters (we didn't). Because of lighting conditions in the aquarium, photography is difficult and I discarded most of the pictures I took.

		Newlyweds, Chela and Wes Grant at brunch this morning
	Monterey

	Monterey's Cannery Row		Monterey Bay Aquarium

	Coral reef fish

	Jelly fish

	Harbor Seals		Susie and Steinbeck

Monterey Bay Area

6 August 2006

Monterey