It was cloudy and a little rainy in Hayward, so I was glad we'd planned something indoors. Turns out, Monterey was absolutely clear and gorgeous.

They had lots of interesting shore birds that were hard to photograph. Same went for the fishes. But for the jellyfish, we made a special effort, because they were just so darn cool.

They had just started an exhibit about jellyfish and art that was supposedly inspired by jellyfish. We weren't convinced that all of it was particularly jellyfish-related (or even artistic -- the wall of lava lamps, for example), but the jellyfish were all pretty neat.

We also saw the otters, though we didn't spend nearly as much time with them as we would have if we'd brought my dad (he loves otters).

The otters were hard to photograph, too. Mostly we got pictures of otterbutt, and even my dad's love of otters doesn't extend to pictures of their backsides. But in this one, the otter was popping up in his little pool thing.

And here's Ceej with a big ol' yellowfin tuna. Those things move remarkably quickly.

We saw pretty much the whole of the Aquarium, so we drove back up to Hayward and had French toast and hung around home. We didn't take a lot of pictures after that, although Ceej should (AHEM) be sending me copies of the ones he took of me in my new hiking boots. Those'll be in my journal, I guess. I'm trying not to be mopey here, but it was hard to see C.J. go. We'll see him again this year, though I'm thinking it probably won't come with as many pictures. You can go home if you want to.