Meg's Epic Week Part 12: Monterey

After the epicness that was the Railroad Revival Tour show, Maayan and I were exhausted--and hungry. We stopped at a Denny's near our hotel, where I chowed down on nachos (my first true meal of the day) and we sat in that exhausted-but-euphoric stupor that comes after a great show.

We rehashed some great moments, which I wrote down in a handy little notebook that I sometimes haul around with me. These helped me remember a few details for the blog post.

Soon, it was back to the hotel, to shower off the makeup, the sweat (from all that jumping and dancing) and the sunscreen before crashing for the night.

Even Cali Swimmy was exhausted.

Needless to say, we didn't get hours and hours of sleep--I was too excited for Friday. Maayan, you see, had never been to Monterey, and I am always looking for an excuse to visit. It took a couple of hours to get there from Oakland, and was well worth the drive.

Izzy and Cali outside a British-style pub.

Sea Lions! I took a great video--posted below.

Crabby

Can you spot the rubber duckies?

"Mom?!"

I called Mom and Dad (who were, at this point in Arizona or New Mexico on their own epic road trip), while Maayan called her sister back in New York. Her conversation was longer, so I stopped to take a video of the sea lions in the harbor.

We decided to go whale watching--Maayan had never been and I always love to go. We paid for our spots on the next tour, then rushed off to use the loo, feed the parking meter, and get some bottled water.

We had a scary moment when Maayan left her purse hanging in the bathroom, but fortunately, the next lady to use the stall left it alone and passed it to Maayan. Nothing was missing, and all was right with the world.

I was delighted to see that the naturalist on board was the same lady that guided the trip I took three years ago. She's very knowledgeable and she loves what she does, so listening to her is fun.

 

Sea lions

The sea lions had taken over the boat! When we came back in a
few hours later, there were no more sea lions, just a man with a mess.

Maayan and Izzy

Kate, our naturalist.

There's a humpback in there somewhere...

Tail

Another tail

A really great tail shot.

So obviously, we started out seeing a pair of humpbacks. The difficulty with watching humpbacks is that for as gigantic as they are, you see only a tiny bit of them. Still, they are amazing and Maayan was quite impressed.

After a little while watching them, the captain announced we were off to try to find some orcas. They'd been in the area, as this time of year is a good time for them to hunt, and we wanted to find some. Maayan and I used this as a chance to rest in the cabin, as we were both still exhausted and also freezing outside on the boat. We were sitting at a table, happily resting with our eyes closed, when Kate's voice was heard on the speakers: "Killer whales!"

You've never seen two ladies jump to attention so fast.

The rest of the day, the running joke would be: "Killer whales!" "WHERE?!"

We had found a single orca--a juvenile--and while it must have had a pod nearby, we never spotted them. We ran along side of him as he raced through the water, and it was quite thrilling when he spotted a pod of dolphins ahead--dinner! He started tail-slapping and breaching like crazy, to alert his pod that he'd found food, and the dolphins did a 180 and raced towards shore, where shallower waters might protect them.

I only got three stills, because I took this awesome video of the dolphin chase, the tail-slapping and the breaching. I'm so pleased that I caught it all. You can hear the naturalist narrating what we see, and Maayan and myself talking, laughing and cheering.

We had a blast, and Maayan was so glad she went (she'd had some initial fears that she might get seasick--but she didn't!).

A lady and her duck.

This sea otter was eating crab. So cute!

Back into the harbor.

At some point in the day, I remarked, "Ooh! My bag is heavy!" Maayan's reply: "It's all the joy from last night." Indeed, there was much joy, both Thursday and Friday.

We wandered back towards the car, stopping to buy some candy and take a few pictures in Fisherman's Wharf.

Not the company we used--but I liked this statue!

Eeeee!!!

After whale watching, we were exhausted. We thought about having dinner down on Cannery Row, but parking was non-existent, so we started on the long drive back towards Stockton.

Eventually, I was really hungry, so we stopped at Pea Soup (if you've been following these blogs from my Epic Week, you'll notice that Pea Soup is a recurring theme). This time, we ate there, and I had...you guessed it! Pea soup. It was delicious.

We arrived home quite late--what a great day it had been, after a wonderful Thursday. I have one more post about my Epic Week--a summary, with a few extra pictures. That will come tomorrow.