Him, a few days ago: So what do you want to do for the Fourth?

Me: It would be fun to drive down the coast, dip our toes in the ocean. Wait–beach traffic. Holiday traffic. Never mind.

One of the facts of life here is that there are a very few very tight windy roads over the mountains between the Bay Area and the coast.

So he proposed going back to the Aquarium. The southern route around wouldn’t be bumper-to-bumper. (Just a little, it turned out.)

Sure! I was quite surprised. How about… (Googling for the perfect almond pastry.) Maybe throw in a bakery exploring?

Sure!

Except the place I wanted to try was closed today so we didn’t get to find out if the almond utter nirvana described per Yelp was true or not. But we had to love a place whose first name was Parker.

Our year’s membership was ending July 30th and at $275 to renew with guest passes again, that would likely be it for awhile. Hang in there, little bakery, we’ll get there someday.

Two weeks ago I was focusing on seeing everything; this time I was taking a lot more photos so as to bring more of them home with me.

I took a picture of the California red-legged frog for all my fellow knitters: our mascot, local version.

The Sunfish photo came out surprisingly well, given how dark the tank is and that there’s no flash allowed. But it moves so very very slowly that the Iphone got it. That’s almost the whole fish–there’s a slightly scalloped edge just to the right there, feather-and-fin style and you’re done.

I asked the receptionist to verify that our passes were good through the 30th. She checked, grinned, and said, August 30th.

August?! Really?!

Yes!

She so loved being able to say that. Sometimes they offer a baker’s dozen of months when you sign up for a year and I guess since we’d come in twice in two weeks they were out to make us happy and she had great fun surprising us.

Well then. We just might have to come back to explore Parker Lusseau when it’s not a holiday. We’ll see. Oh and? The Aquarium employee who told us last time that the  place starts emptying out 4:ooish? Genius. We had the whole upper level of the sea otter exhibit to ourselves and that has NEVER happened. …Well, till the one in view woke up from its nap, whereupon a family came upstairs to see. Their kids were adorable.

Otter with its blankie pictures tomorrow.