Category: Trip

San Jose

I’ve spent the last several days in San Jose with B and L. The time has been filled with stuff like this:

And this:

And even a bit of this:

We traveled far and saw a lot this trip, and it was good 🙂

I’ll sign out with some wise comments from a random used-bookstore cat

…who says: “Next time spend two nights in Death Valley!

Monterey

Monterey Aquarium was as good as I remember it, with a wonderful collection of all sorts of sea life.

The highlights were the ‘tentacles’ exhibit and the jellyfish.

Absolutely recommended if you visit Monterey.

Dinner was in a Chinese place slightly off the tourist street. Importantly we sat inside, since temperatures had fallen into the ‘god it’s freezing’ zone in the early evening!

This morning I went out early to watch seals near the marina. I wasn’t disappointed 🙂

I believe there’s eight of them in the above picture 🙂

Santa Barbara

A six hour drive became nine due to rest stops and food stops and shopping stops and traffic delays. We drove from Death Valley to Santa Barbara, mostly through the eastern Californian desert.

Eventually we arrived at this seaside resort town that isn’t particularly spectacular to travelers such as ourselves.

I’m exaggerating of course, but I was hoping for a dazzling beach but it seems the true appeal of Santa Barbara is in the fishing trips, boutique shopping and fancy hotels. It’s also a bit of a hippy haven it seems.

Yes those are (mostly Star Trek) action figures adorning that vehicle.

Early this morning I went for a walk around the marina.

I learned this is still a working fishing port, providing the world with sea cucumbers, ridged-back shrimps, sea urchin and more. I bet there’s an interesting museum dedicated to the history of the fishing industry here, but we’re about to move on to our next destination farther up the coast…