Traveling Aardvark: January 2009

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Hey, it's the Pacific Ocean!

We finally made it! In this area it looks kinda of like Lake Michigan but when the waves wash in they are foamier. Hoping to see some rocky shoreline as we go south.

Where's Grammie?

There she is WAY down there sticking her toes in the water!

We passed through the big agricultural area. All kinds of orchards and ground crops, things I couldn't identify. Near Gilroy we could smell garlic bigtime-it's the Garlic Capitol! And Castroville-the Artichoke Capitol (couldn't smell that!) whose resturants advertised "Deep Fried Artichokes" it was tempting...but we didn't stop.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

We decided to visit the aquarium while were in the area. They had outside displays too and offshore were kelp beds and you could see the otters floating around. It was very kid friendly too-places where you could touch the starfish and urchins and rays. We also had a nice lunch there-yes-Jim got fish & chips-but no, he did not get to choose it from the tank! Sorry Charlie! It was a nice anniversary day-39-unbelieveable!

Big fish.

The crowds on both sides of the glass.

There they go!

Fish school!

A swarm of anchovies

They were mesmerizing-swirling and turning and catching the light- mostly sticking together till a big fish came through and scattered them-them reforming again. It's way cooler than seeing them on tv!

A jelly storm!

Lots of jelly's here- ever so slowly puffing up and down and up and down-what a life

A long one.

Jellies-so pretty!

They had lots of jelly displays-from big to so tiny and all lit up pretty.

Lookin

You could view these tanks fom two floors. I thought the aquarium on Maui was big but this place topped it.

Thar she blows!

Big fish

I don't think it's a shark-they had lots of huge fish-tunas were enormus-oh-Jim said a it was a sturgeon.

Kelp forest

The big tanks were awsome.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Pea Soup Anderson's Place

Today we planed to see Yosemite National Park. The car had other plans. We entered the park and climbed to between 5,000 to 6,000 ft. and the car stated to slow down and finally stop. The road is a two lane winding road with no shoulders. The car would start and only move about 10 feet before it would die again. A park ranger stopped to see if we needed help. We messed around about a half an hour with the air cleaner. When I went to start the car again, it started and continued to run OK. Linda did not want to continue on into the park any further. So, we went back down out of the park and headed west. When the sun started to set we started to look around for a place to stay. We ended up in Santa Nella staying at the Holiday Inn Express. This is the only picture we took all day. We plan to continue west to the coast tomorrow.

Winter Mountain Driving

Today was my first experience with front wheel drive and tire chains. I rented tire chains and was shown how to put one on. The most important thing to consider is tire clearance, wheel well and strut to tire clearance. The second thing, in my opinion, is chain tightness. The tighter the better. It took me about three stop and goes to find this out. I wasn't given enough little pieces of wire to keep the adjusted links from striking the strut every time the wheel made a rotation. After cutting a coat hanger and adjusting chains as tight as I could, the tire chains still would nick the strut on every rotation. It was a loud twenty plus miles of beautiful mountian road. I think I will try tire cables next time. Less of a clearance issue.