Birthday Happenings

Rewind to my birthday weekend, the most important weekend of the year.  Dirk and I went to Monterey for the occasion, which we planned a few months ago. I have wanted to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium since I heard this amazing story about their octopus.  I’m sure you have heard me tell this story, as it’s one of my favorite “bar stories.”  (As I typed that out, I came to the sudden, crushing realization that I am a loser.) Well, the sciencey people at the aquarium were puzzled as to why some of their crabs were disappearing.  They thought that perhaps they were eating each other, but decided to set up a surveillance camera to see what was happening.  What they discovered was shocking. SHOCKING! Their octopus friend was opening the lid of his tank, crawling on land over to the crab tank, opening it, eating the crabs, and then returning to his own tank. What a smart little sucker! (see what I did there?) So, I’ve always wanted to see this tricky octopus.  I also added octopi to the list of “ANIMALS TO BE WARY OF” because like…what would you do if you saw an octopus crawling around on land, waving a little tentacle at you all like “oh hey.”  I would not like it.

So we went to the aquarium, and it was very cool.  There is something more natural to it than the Camden Aquarium, because it is on the ocean.  The water in many of their tanks actually flows in from the ocean.  They had some great exhibits which included flamingos, seahorses, otters, and jellyfish.  And of course we saw the octopus, which was very active in his tank.  We couldn’t get any good pictures of it because it was dark and you weren’t allowed to use flash photography.  I kept making sure that one of his friends wasn’t crawling around on the floor.

touching stingrays and starfish

Two sharks

Shark feeding!

Circle of life

Fuzzy sand dollars

These are seahorses!

On Sunday, we rented bikes to do the famous bike ride along the coast.  It was beautiful, but the sun was not shining.  If the sun was out, it would have been even more spectacular.  We pedaled from Monterey bay to Pebble Beach and back for a total of 32 miles. Here’s what we saw along the way:

touching the green at Pebble Beach

Teeing off at Pebble Beach

The trophy room

The lone Joshua Tree

Dirk's always navigating for us

Pictures don’t really do it justice, again, because of the lack of sun.  But it really was beautiful.  If we were staying here longer, I would have suggested that we try this again.

And since we started this post talking about my birthday, I should mention that Dirk did a great job with the gifts this year.  Good job, honey! I added a new, beautiful bracelet to my collection. He also gave me a Nook.  I didn’t think that I was going to be into the whole e-reader thing.  I like books! And I don’t want everything to go technological! But it’s amazing for travel and it’s so incredibly light.  It’s nice to carry this tiny little thing rather than a stack of books.  I have it with me in my purse at all times, which is really convenient way to pass time on trains, waiting at the vet, etc.  I read Bossypants on the plane to Germany, which was really funny.

Ali and Jan were sweet enough to bring me a red velvet ice cream cake just a few days ago since they missed my birthday.  Thanks, you two! You are going to be sorely missed when we move back to PA this weekend.