We took a short drive mostly along the 101 this morning and visited the Monterey peninsula. We were in Monterey a few years ago but we only spent the night and didn’t get to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium, so that’s where we went today. The drive was a little over an hour and since it was Tuesday we had no trouble parking Xena; although we did have to drive all over Monterey looking for a space close to the aquarium before going back to the first car park we saw.

We got to the Aquarium not very long after it opened but just late enough that there was no queue to get in. First stop off our visit was the sea otters, and I could have stayed and watched them cavorting all day, they are just so cute. They had two at the aquarium on display, a male and a female; the male was a pup who was found lost in the wild and he now has a nice lady friend to keep him company. They had just been fed when we arrived and they were very active, swimming in their pool and playing with the toys. They must have worn themselves out though as when we stopped by later in the day they were taking an extended nap in a bucket.

Next stop on our tour was the penguin exhibit; the penguins here are an African species and were fairly small. They were being fed when we got there although they only eat every few days so only a few of the birds were actually eating. The rest of them were hanging out in their ‘houses’ and fighting over pieces of grass. One of the lady penguins was in the process of shedding all her feathers and she looked a little rough with hardly any feathers left on her head. Apparently, the birds shed their feathers and grow back a whole new set in just a matter of weeks; and another useful piece of information, penguins can projectile defecate up to three feet, fortunately I didn’t get a picture, but it’s definitely a true fact.





The Aquarium has a really cool exhibit that recreates the Open Sea; it is three stories high and has all kinds of sea life in it. We watched the feeding and it was amazing to watch the different manner in which the different species feed. The sea turtles and sunfish are ‘called’ to the edges of the ocean with buoys so that they are out of the way of the fast swimmers, and then the frenzy begins. Squid and other fish, and vitamins are tossed in to the top and the dorado and tuna make really short work of it; they are super fast and can turn on a dime. The sharks stay well out of the way while the super swimmers go to work. After they were done, some lovely pink krilll was tossed in and the sardines rose from the bottom and danced around while devouring their lunch; they are mesmerising to watch. We tried to take pictures but they didn’t come out so well.



There were loads of other exhibits, the jellyfish,  the giant kelp, and the sea horses and water dragons. The horses and dragons were amazing, and some of the camouflage was unbelievable. We had a really good visit, it wasn’t overly crowded, not too many kids, and the exhibits were all really cool and quite educational.

Afterwards we walked along Cannery Row which is full of shops and galleries, and got to gaze out over Monterey Bay. We ate Indian for lunch which was a little disappointing, but that was the only low point of the day. 

When we got home we had a new friend waiting for us, I think she was a younger one than we’ve seen before as she was a little bit skittish and quite a bit smaller – still so cute though.

Mike: No Becc, we can't take her with us, she might eat Tal-y!

We visited the Garlic Capital of the World today, although there wasn’t much garlic to be had there. Gilroy claims to be the capital, and I’m sure their garlic festival that is held in July is pretty cool, but when the festival isn’t on it’s just another sad town with lots of empty store fronts. We drove through downtown and almost every other store was vacant, it’s really sad to see. Morgan Hill, which was a little north of Gilroy, was in better shape but it was still just a town and not very impressive. The drive was the nicest part of being out today as I really like this part of California; maybe it’s the green hills and the lack of people and traffic.

Mike: Did you run out of things to say? That's not like you!

At the laundry yesterday (it was raining so it was a good day for washing), there was a sign posted about a mountain lion sighting in the park; this morning I made Mike come walking with me as I think I could outrun him if we encountered a mountain lion! Well we didn’t, but we did see two bobcats. I think the first one we saw was the same one as the other day as he was in the same area; he wasn’t relaxing this time though but looking for food. The other one was at the far end of the park; he was sunbathing, just lying in the grass without a care in the world. It did get up and move as we got closer, but he wasn’t in so much of a hurry that he couldn’t take a second to scratch an itch.

Mike: Becc, very funny but looks aren't everything! Besides you run like a girl!

After getting home and getting clean we headed back to Hollister to visit Verizon Wireless to see about getting some kind of device to put us back in touch with the rest of the world. We had stopped by the store on our last visit to town but they were so busy we didn’t stay. Today we spent about 2 hours in the store with a very nice lady who has solved all our communication problems. Since we are still under contract with AT&T we couldn’t cancel their service, but we’d been reading about a wireless hotspot that Verizon sells called a "Jetpack", and it was one of those that we came home with today. If it wouldn’t work at the park we had planned to get a pay-as-you-go phone and we mentioned this to the sales chick; she proceeded to sell us a home connect device which basically gives us a ‘home’ phone anywhere that Verizon has service. We ate Chinese for lunch and then rushed home to see if both, or either of them worked. Well, Mike hasn’t stopped smiling since we got back, as the phone works perfectly, and the hotspot works even better. We can now stay in touch wherever we, even from the back of beyond, and I have no more excuses for not keeping this blog up to date.

Mike: I told you man fix things! UGH! UGH!

I was still in bed about 7.30 this morning when there was a knock at the door. Mike was already up and after the second knock he answered it only to find there was no one there. It’s probable that the woodpeckers in this place were playing tricks on him, or maybe it was one of the gazillion quail that are zipping around. Either way, I think he felt a little silly answering the door to a bird!

We took a drive around the park this morning on our way out to civilisation, and as we were driving towards the exit Mike spotted the cutest bobcat just sitting on a picnic table catching some sun; he didn’t move as we drove by and even posed for pictures. We checked out the lodge and then swung back around to see if he was still there, and found him sharpening his claws on a fallen tree trunk, before lying down and getting comfortably camouflaged in amongst the wilderness. He was very cute, I’m sure Tal-y would have loved to play with him!

We made our way back to Hwy 25 and headed north towards Hollister. On the way we passed through the town of Paicines; the RV park is in Paicines but this morning we visited the town proper. It took us all of 2 ½ minutes as it’s a wide spot in the road consisting of a country store and a post office, and there wasn’t much going on in either one. The next town we passed was Tres Pinos which was a little bigger than Paicines but not by much. Hollister was a lot bigger with plenty of shopping and a downtown devoted to food canning. On the way to having lunch we passed through a good sized residential area that was bordered by huge warehouses full of freshly filled cans. It makes sense that this area would have a major business since so much produce is grown all around this area.

Mike:  "I tawt I taw a pudy tat!"

We packed up the outside of the trailer yesterday afternoon, the awning, mat and all that stuff, so that we could get out of dodge early this morning, but at 10.30 we were still in our space and it didn’t look like we were going to be going anywhere. We’d both gotten up early this morning and taken care of all that we had to until all that was left was to hook up the fifth wheel and unhook the electricity. Mike started to get hitched up, he backed onto the trailer once, twice, three times, ten times, and just could not get the truck and trailer hitched together. He tried to get the hitch to lock around the fifth wheel pin and it just wouldn’t. He tried everything, he backed the truck in with aggression, he rocked the trailer back and forth, he fiddled with the handle, but nothing worked. He kept at it for about 2 hours, I kept my mouth shut the whole time (I’m finally learning), and then he decided to go ask for help at the ranger station. A first ranger came and couldn’t help as he didn’t have a fifth wheel and didn’t know what the problem was, so he called for help. Two more guys showed up, a ranger and a wrangler, and after much fiddling and backing up the wrangler finally managed to get the hitch handle to lock and drop. Apparently the problem was that it had seized up a little and just needed a bit of lubrication.
We finally got on the road just before eleven and from then on the rest of the day was plain sailing. We drove to the 101 and had a lovely drive north for about 3 hours. It really is a beautiful part of the state here, it’s very lush and green, with lots of space and farmland. After leaving the 101 we took a county road past more fields growing all kinds of who knows what, before picking up highway 25. We followed this twisty turny road for about thirty miles before we came to the road that this park is on. A few more miles past lots of vineyards and we found San Benito Thousand Trails where we are going to spend the next couple of weeks.

We got checked in and drove in to the park to find a space; there are lots of 50 amp spaces here so we headed for that section first. This place is huge, there are over 500 spaces, and the spaces themselves are huge. The only problem is that the park doesn’t look like it’s been mowed since Mike was a little boy. It was difficult to find the spaces as they are all so overgrown with long grasses; we had to literally wade through the grass when we eventually picked a spot to get everything set up. The trailer came off the truck without any issues this afternoon, and we got everything else done fairly quickly which was good as by the time we got here it was almost time for dinner. I think it’s going to be a nice fortnight here as it’s quiet and peaceful, the only issue we have, as usual is no Internet; and we can’t even tether to my phone here as we have absolutely no cell service – good old AT&T!

Mike: I'm still going to fix this problem! @#%&$#@

It’s been really hot here again today, even at 7 o’clock this morning it was close to 70 degrees. We sat out on the patio first thing, eating breakfast and keeping cool from the slight breeze blowing through the park.

Then around mid morning we headed over the arena to watch the ranch dogs performing, and they were amazing; their names were Cutter and Meg and they herded cattle and sheep respectively. They are both Kelpies, which is an Australian breed that is a cross between a Border Collie, a Terrier (Manchester I think he said), and a dingo. It was really cool to watch, and I think the dogs could have gotten the job done without their masters, as they both needed very little instruction. Meg does competitions and Cutter only works on the ranch here; it was easy to see Cutter felt right at home cos half way through the herding of the cattle he took a time out to go take a dip in the water trough. Then when his performance was over he took another dunk to cool off – can’t really blame him, as it was super hot, the sheep were panting under their wool coats.

After the dogs came the bull-bucking demo. They have several young bulls here that they get prepared for rodeos and such; even at 2 years old they were some big boys. They didn’t have actually riders today as they are too young, they use remote control dummies that they can be released off their backs whenever the wrangler wants to, to simulate a rider; they work their way up to 8 seconds as the bulls get older and stronger. It was a really good demonstration.

Mike: The dogs were amazing and so was the dummy! (not talking about Becc)