Day 16

Our wonderful day the day before wasn't perfect. Shortly after lunch my check engine light came on.  We have a bunch of miles ahead of us on this trip so we decided to drive in to the Monterey area to get it looked at. But first we enjoyed our view once again with pancakes!

They didn't have time for us right away so we drove down to Cannery Row in Monterey to look around for an hour. Once we got back they said it was going to take a few hours and offered us a shuttle ride to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I'd always heard amazing things about this place so we took the opportunity to check it out!

Our first stop was the jellyfish as Grammie had heard about them already. The room was dark and the jellyfish were mesmerizing! We all thought it would have been a good idea just to have a room full of benches because we just want to sit down and watch them gracefully swoosh around their aquariums.  I tried to talk Grammie into replacing her giant bookcase with a jellyfish aquarium. Hopefully she's considering it. Aren't these baby jellies just adorable?

Living in a beach area ourselves the kids knew a lot of what was being taught here. My kids have been raised on reusable bags and containers so some of the single use plastics just seem strange to them.  We've enjoyed recycled plastic sculptures at several museums but had never seen on quite this small.





The amount of plastic in the water is astounding. We were shocked to see just how much was found in an albatross's stomach!

Our next stop was the open sea area where you could watch all the animals swimming their laps in the 3-story aquarium. The girls loved the turtles the best!








The touch tank area was pretty crowded but the kids did get to see real west coast seaweed. It's huge compared to our Gulf seaweed. The girls held a hermit crab and touched a few anemone. I told them we would hopefully be visiting a few tide pool areas soon so they got very excited.







We were just in time at the penguin exhibit to watch a feeding and learn a little bit. The penguins there were African penguins and they were ready to eat for sure! We learned all about their markings and the aquarium's program to bring the animals back from threatened status by pairing strong genetic penguins together. A baby penguin is officially on my birthday list now.

We had just enough time to make it to the sea otter exhibit for their program. While the staff talked the otters completed the tasks they were supposed to do in order to receive the fish. Most of the tasks were health related so the otters were used to the trainers touching and evaluating them. And of course a baby otter is on my birthday list too.

I received a phone call about my car after the show. It could have been a couple different things - none of which I had time to hang around and fix because they would need to be ordered. We headed to a movie about a local orphan otter and I searched for auto care centers near my next spot while we waited for it to start. The stress of trying to stay on the road was getting to me!

After the movie we walked down to the shops for a few minutes while we waited for the shuttle to come grab us. The kids decided to spend some of their money they get each week from Dave in the candy store.  They generously shared with me on the ride back.




While I cooked dinner the girls decided to play cards with Ryan's new addition to her traveling stuffed animals. She named her "Luna" after the orphan in the movie and apparently was able to teach her how to play cards!

Tonight I not only prepped the car for leaving the next day but also for spending hours at the car repair place on the way to our next spot. I planned to stop in San Jose hoping that a bigger city might
have the parts my car needed. Our trips aren't always fun & games!

Day 32

Today was the day we decided to explore a little further away. We picked the aquarium in Atlantic City and after talking to Dave we thought we'd find a New Jersey boardwalk to experience. Today was supposed to be a little bit hotter so it would be nice to stay inside for at least part of the day.

The kids really enjoyed seeing all the tall casino buildings as we drove through part of Atlantic City. We ended up at the aquarium shortly after they opened and just in time for a program.  The program today was on exotic animals and included a blue-tongued skink, a rare corn snake, and a not-very-exotic box turtle.

There were some very interesting animals on exhibit but I think the girls favorite thing was the touch tank for the sting rays. No matter how many times they do this at aquariums, they still squeal when they get to feel them as they swim by. Extra bonus squeal if they get accidentally splashed!  Brayden even touched one of the guys swimming by us a couple of times - a first for him!






This was a pretty small aquarium so we were finished before noon. We drove around for a few minutes in search of the boardwalk. From what I could tell Atlantic City boardwalk wasn't the place for us so we decided to make the hour drive down to the Cape May area. Ryan picked a zoo the day before in the area too so we headed there first for lunch and lots and lots of animals.

This red panda was a definitely favorite of all the kids. If they could've broken him out and taken him they absolutely would have!

We learned the capybara is the largest rodent in the world!  Apparently they are currently invading Florida.

And this guy stole all the kids' hearts once we read he'd been fighting cancer for quite a while. He'd been through three surgeries and chemotherapy and was currently cancer free.  No wonder he was rolling around like a cub!

After a stroll through the reptiles and a peek at the wallaby, we headed down the road to the boardwalk. Wildwoods was supposed to be a fun, family-friendly boardwalk that looked like a place the kids would love.  After finding some parking and having a little ice cream we walked up the steps to an overwhelming experience of games, shopping, and food!

After we walked the whole boardwalk, the kids decided what they wanted to ride and what games they wanted to play. Everyone ended up with some kind of basketball activity and by the end of our stay all the kids had a stuffed animal to hang on to.

Our drive home wasn't too terrible and we arrived home perfectly at bedtime. The kids were beyond excited about picking up Dave the next morning! We all had a tough time going to sleep that night for sure.