Day 2 on the Portland Pilgrimage

Ah, day two on the road started promptly at nine o'clock (heehee) with the sound of a hairdryer in the distance....Once I was fully awake, Mom said she was going to check out the continental breakfast and came back with warmed up pork pasties and orange juice. Yeah, it was good. We then started off towards our next destination: another knitting shop! This one was located in Carmel and is called Knitting by the Sea. Do you know that there are no street addresses in downtown Carmel? Yeah, Lee didn't either, and so, did his very best with what little information we gave him. All the businesses in downtown have PO Boxes.....So, the first words said to us when we walked through the door was "Were you the ones that called for directions?" To which, we promtly laughed and said yes. We looked around, bought some things, then Mom pulled out this truely hideous hat she had been trying to make for Don for his birthday (which was on October 24th). Needless to say, she's been doing her best to finish this "ear flap hat", but (and I didn't know this until this morning) has been trying to do it on the fly.....with no pattern....using just her imagination......and the wrong size needles. So, the finished product looked kind of like a tea cozy, but with a reservoir tip. When Maurya (the owner of Knitting by the Sea) asked to see the pattern she had used, Mom gave her that blank stare like "what pattern?" I asked her how many times she'd already ripped it out and she said "well, four times before Don's birthday, and I guess two..no...three times since." Maurya choked and I giggled. In the end, we had to give Maurya a skein of yarn to compensate her for the impromtu knitting lesson. But don't worry, the hat is now ON TRACK!! Don's ears will not get frostbite this winter! Anyway, here are some photos of Mom working away at the center table and Mauyra (in the middle) advising some customers. We had a really good time.



After Knitting by the Sea, we drove to Monterey and had lunch at Willy's Smokehouse and made a meal of appetizers! Grilled artichoke, mussels, smoked brisket tacos, and pasilla chiles, then it was off to the Monterey Bay Aquarium! I have been to this aquarium before, but it has changed quite a bit since I was nine. They've added wonderful new exhibits, including Jellies: Living Art. Now, I know people that read this are going to think I'm a little strange, but I don't care. I love Jellyfish. There's something about watching them slowly pulsate, steady and graceful in the water. It's slow, not frantic, like fish. The bells reach, then push against the water and the beautiful frills and tetacles follow, fluttering and twisting like sheer dress flounces. It's an underwater dance in slow motion that I could watch for hours. At the beginning of the exhibit, there is a case full of glass sculptures done by Don Chihuly, an artist I admire and love for his creativity and use of form and color. This was a great exhibit and I hope it stays a permanent feature at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.




These are upside down jellies that hang out on the sea floor. Instead of using their bells strictly for locomotion, they use them to waft food up from the sea floor, into their tentacles (which resemble sea plants). Cool....






Here are some of the other neat animals we saw. This is a sunfish. Whenever I see this fish, I always think how prehistoric it looks. It's like crocodiles, horseshoe crabs, or dragonflies, where the original blueprint has survived over millions of years with little or no changes.

Here are some tree snakes that actually coil up and catch fish right out of the water.

There were a lot of snakes in this one terrarium. Can you see the tangle of bodies, tails, and heads? Look closely, the're very well camouflaged...

Asian Green Tree Frogs....

Anenomes...


Sea worms...

and believe it or not, this tangle of curls is actually a Brittle Arm Seastar....

Mom under the very cool Pacific Tide Pool exhibit....

Whew....what could be better than chocolate, banana, strawberry crepes for dessert after a long, fun day at the aquarium...I can't think of anything.....