Spring Break - Day 2 (Monetery Aquarium)

Lots of fishies at the Monterey Aquarium

Saturday, March 24, 2012

We checked out of the motel around 10 am and went searching for breakfast. We first tried the highly rated Breakfast Club, but the line was out the door so we went to Denny's instead. Three pancakes, two eggs, two sausages, a pile of hash browns, and about three cups of coffee later, I was satisfied with our choice.

The Monterey Aquarium is regarded as one of the best in the world, and was our next activity for the trip. We arrived around noon and spent about 2.5 hours exploring. There were a lot of cool stuff to see but the highlights were the jelly fish exhibits and the gigantic tank which had thousands of fish, a giant sea turtle, and several other sharks including a hammerhead.  The $30 student entry fee was a little steep I thought, but I'd still recommend it for the jelly fish and big tank alone.  There also a lot of animal feeding and instructional talks (we watched the otter and albatross feedings) and video presentations.  Either way it was definitely a good stopping point and way to spend a few hours while in town.

We left the aquarium around 2:30 and were unfortunately hit with a $35 parking ticket a couple minutes earlier for illegally parking in a nearby supermarket parking lot.  There was a rain storm for most of the day, but luckily we were either indoors or in the car almost all of this time.  Our next quick stop was in San Jose for a very late lunch around 4 pm. We went to Togo's, which is a local sandwich shop that was tasty, but not really worth mentioning any more about.  This was followed a little while later with a mini ski gear shopping spree at Any Mountain, which we hope ends up being cheaper than the stores in South Lake Tahoe.

It was a long drive through twisty, dimly lit roads in the mountains to get to Lake Tahoe.  We had been afraid of weather forecasts predicting snow, but luckily the night was as clear and precipitation-free as could be.  It was around 10 pm when we arrived in South Lake Tahoe, and we picked up some Italian food since we hadn't eaten dinner yet, and then checked in for our stay at the Lake Tahoe Beach and Ski Club.

Our living room and kitchen at the Tahoe Beach and Ski Club

We had gotten a really good deal on the accommodations through a LivingSocial online deal ($225 total for 3 nights in a 1 bedroom townhouse).  We figured that was a pretty reasonable deal for a non-motel in Lake Tahoe on a weekend during ski season for three nights, so didn't know what to expect with how nice the room would be or the resort space, but were very pleasantly surprised.  Our room had been recently renovated and had a large master bedroom, a good size living room, full kitchen with a center island, two full bathrooms including a jacuzzi, a balcony/outdoor patio, two HD TVs and DVD players, and was fully stocked with kitchen and dining equipment.  Since we got in so late we didn't have a chance to check the premises yet, but we were told that there are two hot tubs, an outdoor heated pool, a gym, a game room with pool table, plus a lot of outdoor sports areas that would be nice if it wasn't 40 degrees out.  The plan for tomorrow is to spend the day skiing, but now am also looking forward to plenty of relaxation time at the resort.