We had to walk a few blocks to the aquarium through the harbor area, it is mostly shops and restaurants now. The aquarium is located inside of an old sardine cannery building. Some of the old canning equipment is left for display inside the building with lots of pictures and history about the cannery.
It was kind of crowded when we got there, but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. We got to see everything without too much hassle. The aquarium is separated into sections, which makes it easier to make sure you see everything. I don't remember what we started with, but apparently there was an octopus involved(I'm trying to remember everything from several days ago....)and I got my picture with it. He is in the upper left corner of the pic, next to the no camera flash sign.
There was a huge tank in the center of the place that housed a lot of different fish and several types of sharks. We did our best to get pictures in front of them. We had to try about 400 times because the sharks are pretty fast and we had to figure out the timing.
Erin's pose:
I put a little more effort into my shark picture....
After the sharks, we went to the touch tanks, where you can touch starfish, kelp, and other weird junk. I think this picture is of me touching a crab. The crabs were kind of pokey, and they weren't much fun. The starfish were pretty awesome. Some were like rocks and others were like leather.
The night before we came, we were checking out the aquarium website and they mentioned a bat ray touch tank. That instantly became the only thing I wanted to do. Well, before we played tag with the starfish, we tried to touch bat rays, but they were all hiding in the corner. After the starfish, I wasn't ready to give up yet. I went back over to the bat ray tank and just as I stepped up, one came flying by. I think he saw my hand and tried to flip up his side and avoid me, but I was ready for him.
Erin stood by and got the action shot just at the moment of sweet bat ray touching bliss:
I had to beat down a 4-year old to get that touch, so enjoy it!
In the open ocean section, there were huge schools of sardines and anchovies. Its crazy how they all just swim the same way and same speed, except for the ones that are about to die, they swim kinda sideways and they stand out from the crowd. The aquarium has a whole exhibit on jellyfish and it was awesome. They actually grow their own jellyfish for display at the aquarium. After the jellyfish, we went through the seahorse exhibit. Seahorses are wild. They need some arms or something to look somewhat normal. They just float around with little fins flapping like wings on their backs. It just doesn't look natural. I should ask Dr. Miles(dad) what a seahorse farm call charge would be......(Ha!)
We got to see every exhibit in the aquarium, and it took us about 2 and a half hours or so. On the way out, we posed for some logo shots.
I feel like my arms look really long and weird here, like a Stretch Armstrong or something...
Seeing all those fish made us want to eat them, but we weren't allowed. We had to settle for a little fish market/restaurant a few blocks away. I ordered fish and chips, and Erin ordered a combo and chips that had fried prawns, halibut and calamari(amazing). Lunch was really good, and after that we loaded up and set off towards Yosemite. It was a really hot ride, it kept getting worse the farther inland we went. About the time we needed a break, a Dollar Tree appeared out of the desert like a mirage. But this was no mirage, it was the real deal. We were about out of soap and shampoo, so we picked that up along with a couple of sodas. Erin, as always, wanted to walk up and down every single aisle in the store. We can go to the Dollar Tree in Carbondale three times in one day, and she will walk every aisle every time... I don't get it, but I usually just cruise the candy aisle and let her do her thing.
A little farther down the road at our exit from the freeway, we stopped into a walmart and a grocery store to grab some veggies for dinner. We wanted to grill potatoes, corn, and zucchini, and slice up some tomatoes to go with it. We milled around Safeway for a while enjoying the AC and picking up stuff for dinner and lunch the next day. Safeway has a value savings card (like a Kroger card) and we have one from when we went on our honeymoon to Hawaii, but we forgot it and none of our phone numbers worked to pull it up and a nice lady in line let us use her card and it saved us a lot of money. About five miles down the road after we left, Erin leaned up to me and said "We forgot the corn!" So we went without corn with dinner.
We had to invent room in the bike to fit everything, but we still couldn't get it all in. Erin took this amazing picture.
The bread got to ride between us like a little wheat baby. We kept on going, I think we were 35ish miles out from the campground at this point. We got to the campground right at about 8:15, and they had closed at 8. The employees were still there and got us some ice and firewood, and said we could pay for it in the morning. Here is where the fun begins.... They showed us our campsite, the whole thing was an incline. I couldn't pull the bike in, I would never be able to get the bike out, so I tried to circle around through the site next to it and park facing out of the site. Well that didn't work either, it was too steep and too much of a sideways angle. I set the bike down on the kickstand and couldn't get it back up, Erin and the employee had to help me. I was pretty frustrated, so I tossed my helmet off and asked if I could park up on the hill about 20 feet away where it was level. I went up there and found a spot and parked. I was getting off the bike and was about to go down to the original site when the employee was yelling something about all the camping in this area being dusty and that's what we should expect, and this site was ours now, yadda yadda yadda. I didn't pick up on his 'tude problem until after he took off, it happened really fast, but I was ticked about it. I guess he had said the same thing to Erin while I was moving the bike. It wasn't a dust problem, it was a levelness problem! More on the levelness in tomorrow's post......
Oh, this was the Yosemite South/Coarsegold, CA KOA. Don't stay there. Ever.
I made a small fire and we ate foil-pouch potatoes and sliced tomato for dinner. When we got back from the showers, Erin had had an interesting experience. She took a shower with a frog. He just hung out on the shower curtain and soaked up some steam. When she got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night she opened the tent up to a deer walking through what was supposed to be our campground. Must be a KOA zoo or something with real-life experiences. We had gotten all of our bags packed up and our clothes we needed for the next day all laid out so that in the morning, we could just pack up and get far away from that place fast. Then we went to sleep.
Today we traveled miles 176.4 miles for a total of 7069.8 miles across America.
No comments:
Post a Comment