Getting There - Aneel's Travelogue

On my way to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, I passed the beach where I did my very first ocean scuba dive, and on the way from the Aquarium to the highway, I passed the dive shop that we did those dives out of.

I took the behind-the-scenes tour at the Aquarium, which meant that I got to see a bunch of the areas that visitors usually don't, and got to hear about things like where the water in the tanks is from (the Bay itself, pumped in through what was once a sardine vacuum transport system), why it is so clear (they filter it during the day, but allow it to come through unfiltered during the night), and how they get deep sea fish acclimated to shallow water (pressurized vessels that slowly reduce the pressure). They have some tanks that aren't shown to most visitors that they keep dimmer, so that the fish aren't disoriented by the bright near-surface light.

The seahorse exhibit was neat, but it was packed with squalling kids.

After spending about 4 hours at the Aquarium, I finally hit the road. I cut inland to the 101 to avoid the PCH traffic on a beautiful Saturday. There was some construction and related traffic around San Mateo, so I switched over to the 280 for the final leg of the trip.

Return Day 7: Map 137 mi

Return Day 1-7: Map 1363 mi

Total Trip: 2798 mi