Friday, April 19, 2013

Seahorses, Carmel and Being Truly Spontaneous

I'm going to lump three rather unrelated stories together in one post. Please try to follow along. I'm possibly losing my marbles after four weeks on the road.

Yesterday was our day to tour the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Drive the 17-Mile Road through Carmel and Pebble Beach. This was an RBK day, start to finish. I don't have a particular interest in marine life but the aquarium is a top pick for tourists so I figured there must be something to it. I ambled through the exhibits, thinking ahead to Carmel that afternoon. One of the last sections of the aquarium we visited was called "The Secret Lives of Seahorses." I think I had a seahorse when I was really young but I may have imagined I did, because I wanted one so much. At the first tank, I was instantly hooked! They are mesmerizing, elegant and simply fascinating to watch. It looks as though they're motorized because their tiny back fins move 50 times a second and they can move up, down, forward or backward.  See video below.  And that's just the beginning of it!!

Seahorses do a courtship dance before they mate. After the dance, they mate for life and here's the best part!!--the female hands off the fertilized eggs to the male, who carries them to term and gives birth. There was footage of the mating dance and actual birth. And, they had a tank of mated seahorses who twine their tails and float around together.









After the seahorse exhibit, I had my material for the blog but we still had the incomparable 17 Mile Drive through Carmel and Pebble Beach still to come.  The day before we had seen Big Sur.  I was reaching sensory overload, but we forged ahead.  Obviously, the drive is nothing short of spectacular but the best part was seeing RBK's reaction to it all.  Normally, he's pretty low-key but he could NOT hold back.  It was one superlative after another seeing the mansions, the ocean, the unusual trees and greenery...and finally, Pebble Beach itself.  He spent a bundle in the pro shop and came out looking as though he'd had a religious experience.  It would be the same for me, if I'd been to Wimbledon.

It was on to Carmel for a bit of shopping.  Here I was distinctly underwhelmed.  Monterey was much more approachable.  The display of wealth was shocking both on 17 Mile and in town.  The road was beautiful but after Big Sur, the beauty was skin-deep.  I could not identify with any of it:  golf, drippy, ostentacious wealth, superior attitudes in the shops and a general feeling that wherever I went I felt invisible to those around me, maybe even as though I was trespassing.

Today, was a driving day in the direction of Yosemite but the drive was really short; only two hours. We wondered as we got started, how to spend the day when we suddenly drove past a billboard for the Winchester Mystery House.  We had seen the house on TV a couple of times and were mildly intrigued.  It was only 45 minutes off the route so we decided to go for it.  It was spontaneous and we were so proud of ourselves.

RBK enjoys lunch overlooking the 18th green at Pebble Beach

Lone Cypress in Pebble Beach


Winchester Mystery House


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