I do like Monterey Bay Aquarium. It's the one place that I've made a point of visiting every single time that I've been to California, and I never tire of it, even though my photographs never seem quite able to capture the beauty and splendour of the place.
This time around, we arrived on Saturday afternoon, after having parked in one of the more "tourist trap" style car parks along Cannery Row, to find the place to be more heaving with people than we had ever seen it before, although the girl who sold us the tickets after we had queued up for a while explained that this was because it was a "Holiday Weekend" and that lots of people were taking the opportunity to tie it to Veteran's Day the following Tuesday to make their visit.
Suddenly, all the problems that we had found in booking our hotel rooms, and the presence of all of those hordes of people milling about suddenly made a lot more sense, and a great big "Ah, NOW I understand…" flowed through our minds as we were suddenly wondering about our next hotel booking and just how difficult it might turn out to be.
That was for later, of course, because first we had to admire the splendour of all that marine life, from jellyfish to penguins, sharks to turtles, and sea otters to puffins that we were going to look at until the aquarium closed at around 5.00 am "I think" (as one employee we asked helpfully replied).
Still with its vast plate glass windows, and large kelp forest, alongside all of the other displays, (one or two of which failed to convince me that they were genuine sea creatures - Ahem!) Monterey Bay Aquarium remains a good and inspiring afternoon out, despite the hustle and bustle of all of the people and the many and varied types of human activity on display.
I wonder what the jellyfish make of the "Educator" style of parenting, or the more passive "Being Educated by their kids" type…? They probably remain utterly oblivious, of course, and are maybe unaware that they are even in tanks, however vast and temperature controlled they might be.
One of the most beautiful things about the aquarium is the outdoor areas which give a spectacular view across Monterey Bay itself, and give you the chance to see the marine and bird life of the bay in its more natural environment. Seeing various Gulls, Cormorants and Pelicans, Seals and Sea Lions is pretty much par for the course, and the aquarium will now even lend out binoculars to visitors so that they can get a closer look, which was especially exciting as a Peregrine Falcon had recently taken to perching on the high towers of the building's cooling system and was helping to keep the local pigeon population under control, as well as fighting a bitter territorial feud - as we were able to witness - with another Peregrine whose area of interest was overlapping with its own.
The only problem I could see with that particular view of the bay was that it didn't face towards the sunset, not that this made the view any less impressive as the setting sun behind us painted the clouds in rich hues of pink and orange as we ended our afternoon's visit.
Walking back along Cannery Row, we were able to see the even richer colours of the sunset itself and then we decided that, instead of returning to the car immediately and heading off to check in at our chosen hotel, we would instead risk having a meal in one of the food outlets on Cannery Row itself and, with us both suddenly really fancying a proper American hamburger, we found ourselves heading inside "Johnny Rockets" for what would turn out to be a memorable experience, mostly because of the truly excellent staff.
You see the burgers were perfectly fine, and the milkshakes were utterly wonderful, which is much as you might expect, but what earned the waitress a much larger tip than we might otherwise have left was her efforts in making us feel welcome, not least by drawing little portraits of us in the ketchup bowls she brought, and then the entire staff (or so it seemed) suddenly joined in with an impromptu dance routine when Aretha's "Respect" came onto the Jukebox which was very enjoyable to watch, and made all the more so be not being pressured to join in with it.
I did wonder whether they have to do this whenever that particular track comes on, or whether they plan it, and I also wondered whether they were limited to one performance an hour, otherwise they would end up even more shattered than they might otherwise be.
That, and a truly wicked, wicked person could, if they put their mind to it, put that track on endless repeats and completely wear them out...
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