San Francisco 2016- Part 3

 Wednesday, with the conference behind us, we hopped in the car (for the first time in several days) and headed south the explore Monterrey Bay.  Since working at the Oceanarium in college I have wanted to visit the Monterrey Bay Aquarium.  People would always come in with high praises for this being one of the best aquariums in the US.  We took the scenic route on our way down following Route 1 along the coast.  It was really neat to see so many beautiful beaches and cliffs.  As we got closer we drove along the boardwalk in Santa Cruz and through farm country.  We have been wondering where all of the produce we eat comes from when it says grown in California. Well, we found several huge commercial farms with hundreds and hundreds of workers.  We took full advantage of the farm stands there and scooped up kiwi- 10 for $1 (that isn't a typo), small watermelon 2 for $1 and other amazing deals on strawberries and avocado.

The aquarium did not disappoint. It was large, engaging and had so many fantastic staff who were all kind, knowledgeable and very willing to answer any of the kids questions.  We were probably all most impressed with the schools of sardines in several tanks. Seeing the canning process that used to happen in those same buildings also helped.  

After the aquarium we rented a surry bike and cruised along the shore.  As it turns out it is really had to pedal that kind of bike with only two adult peddlers... at least the coastline was beautiful and the kids kept the fighting to a minimum. After the ride we got a well deserved ice-cream.  We had a wonderful day in Monterrey and could have spent more than a day there if time had allowed.

Thursday morning we thought we were heading to the California Science Center, but when we started driving we noticed that the weather was over cast, but not foggy, so we took a detour to the Golden Gate Bridge so that Noah could get a picture with his Darth Vader/Golden Gate Bridge shirt actually at the bridge.  In true fashion we all got out of the car, found some interesting exhibits and by 12:30 we were just leaving... maybe we will try the museum tomorrow;)  

The weather was quite pleasant with no rain in sight so we walked about halfway across the bridge.  The only reason we didn't make it all the way across was we didn't bring the stroller and Audrey was getting a bit "uncooperative". We learned some bridge engineering and got the kids' National Park stamps.  Then we headed directly below the bridge to Fort Point.  Again, I thought it would take minutes, but we got caught up in a tour (that's right, the kids tolerated a 45 minute walking tour with other adults), explored the fort and then stayed for (the highlight) the demonstration on how to load and fire a cannon... they were pretty thrilled with their cannoneir certificates.  

After all that the rain came, so we toured around the city a bit and took in Twin Peaks before heading back to our house.  This evening one of Gabe's friends from college came over for dinner and we had a great time catching up.  Thanks for the visit Pat!