Wine Country and Sea Stars

Time is running out so we are squeezing as many trips away into the next two months as we can.

Last weekend took us to Monterey and Pacific Grove. Our trip was mainly focused around Owen's awesome diving experience. A two hour session at the aquarium with a team of experts giving tuition in small groups of 3. We have all been looking forward to this since before leaving England when we were showing the children some of the places we might visit in California. The children weren't actually able to go 'under' the water, more surface diving, but awesome all the same to be able to wear a dry suit and all the breathing apparatus. Owen saw a monkey faced eel which his instructor fed, they also saw numerous sea stars including a pink one and of course hermit crabs. One of the instructors told the children that if they didn't see hermit crabs then they needed their eyes tested - Owen found this quite funny. 

The girls didn't miss out either, while the dive was in progress there was the opportunity to go 'bucket diving'. This basically consisted of Rose, and Isla, putting on goggles and being able to experience breathing under water in a bucket using the same breathing equipment the older children were using.

I would fully recommend this experience to any child between 8 and 13 years old. Totally cool. The Great Tide Pool is the aquarium's superb outdoor classroom that literally drops off into the Pacific Ocean. It is designed in a way that it is constantly connected to the sea but it is difficult for the wild sea otters and sea lions to get in.

We stayed a short distance out of Monterey at the Asilomar Conference Centre. This is an historic site in Pacific Grove with picturesque boardwalks through the dunes leading to a beautiful white sand beach littered with shells, obscure seaweed and beautiful tide pools ready for exploring.

For me this beach IS California. What I imagined anyway. And this is the same for many of the beaches along the famous 17 mile drive (Pebble Beach Golf Course and the US Open if you are into golf, which I am not). 

This weekend we have headed in the opposite direction, north over the bridge, and have landed in Wine Country. Calistoga to be exact. Its about an hour and 1/2 drive from the city if we'd have put the right destination in the sat nav. Instead it took about 2 1/2 hours. Beautiful countryside though.

Mountain Home Ranch is a bit like Yosemite Bug but a little more 'rustic'. The cabins are basic but adequate and the buildings are a little tired but the atmosphere is laid back and outdoors. Its 9pm as I write this and there are still children playing in the outdoor pool. Ironically our cabin is called Peace.

The owner took us up to see the horses today and the children were allowed to groom one of them. There is a basket of carrots in the dinning room to take (one for each hand) and feed the goats and horses too.

Today we have swam in two pools ( a heated one and a "refreshing" one), looked for eggs, played basketball, drunk hot chocolate, eat tea looking over the valley circled by turkey vultures and fed the horses and goats.

Tonight we are reading on our veranda and preparing for our next adventure.........