Okay let me look and see where I was in the story, ah okay. Friday morning we got up early and headed down to Fisherman's Wharf for our Whale Watching tour. The tour itself was great, if a little cold. We saw 2 humpback whales, neither breached, but that is a pretty rare occurrence. We also saw two different kinds of dolphins. One group, which I believe were Pacific White Side Dolphins, actually came up to the boat and played around in the wake. We also saw lots of seals and sea lions. Though you don't need to go on a tour to see those, they are everywhere around the docks. The Sea Otters also hang out around the docks but we didn't see quite as many of those.
That afternoon we rented Bikes and biked down the coast, which was really fun. We got to see the beaches and shoreline closeup. Nikki even got some very close up pictures of some deer that were eating the roadside plants.
Oh and they did deliver my suitcase that afternoon so I had clothes again!
On Saturday we headed off to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. If it was really cool, somewhat crowded though. If you are wanting to go I suggest buying tickets from your hotel, then you can get in the group entrance and don't have to wait in line. Also arrive early, if you get there within 30 minutes of it opening you can go right from otter feeding to the two big tank feedings, which is about the coolest thing to see, since all the fish are very active during the feedings. One of the tanks even has divers that get in and feed the fish by hand.
After the Aquarium we went off and had a nice seafood lunch and walked around Cannery row. Nikki fell in love with the Rip Squeak Gallery. She bought all the books.
That night we got dressed up and went out to "Fresh Cream" the restaurant recommended by the hotel. It was very fancy and the food was great. It was possibly overpriced but was exactly what were were wanting anyway.
On Sunday, we did a Wine Tour of the Carmel Valley wineries. They pick you up in a van and take you around all the wineries and let you sample the wine. That's really the way to go, you don't have to worry about drinking too much and driving.
That evening we walked along the beach and Nikki got lots of great pictures of otters, seals and Sea Lions. She even got a picture of both a baby otter and a baby seal.
The next day we slept in and prepared to head back to Dallas. Of course, AA wasn't done with us yet, our flight from LAX to Dallas was delayed 3 hours. I can see why people are avoiding air travel these days. This time we ate at the On the Border, which is actually pretty much the same as the normal OTB.
So that was our vacation, Monterey,CA was great! The air travel sucked but everything turned out okay in the end.
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