Family Vacation, Part 6 - Aquarium

Southward, Ho!!!

:-) We reached our northernmost point today and have now headed south once more. Actually, we went a lot farther north than we had intended.

I felt pretty rotten last night--my sore throat got worse and I had the sweaty chills and my whole body just hurt. But we had another good prayer, then I bundled up (slept in one of James' sweatshirts) and was able to sleep well. When I woke up this morning I felt GREAT! The sore throat is holding on, but it's pretty mild and I can certainly cope--especially since the rest of me feels terrific! I never even got sleepy today (I usually have to fight off napping while we're driving) and ended up doing a lot of the driving myself, which was great fun. Driving on straight, flat roads is one of the greatest miseries of life. But driving on winding mountain roads? FUN. :-)

By looking at the map, we realized we would be doing a lot of driving and there wouldn't really be much "fun" stuff for the kids along the way today. So we decided to start the day by going to the little aquarium there in Crescent City. I'm so glad we did! We've been to lots of aquariums in the last several years and I wondered if it would be a mistake--paying to go to another one when "we've already seen it all," you know? The aquarium was indeed much smaller than most that we've been do, but we had a tour guide accompany us through the whole thing and explain everything we were seeing and tell us all about the sharks and fish and sea anemones and everything else, as well as answer all of our questions. He was super nice and so very informative--and our family was all alone on the tour! COOL.

Here's James, showing the kids how to surf.



Or something like that...



Katie has unique form...



Joe's is slightly better...



But Sam's is the BEST!



The first part of the tour was the seal and sea lion show. Okay, so it wasn't actually a show. They have two harbor seals and one sea lion and they just started training them about 8 months ago. They hope to be able to put a show together sometime soon. I've seen seals and sea lions before in prettier settings, but this was sooooo cool because we were just so CLOSE to them and it was so much more intimate. Most of these pictures (except this first one and two others later on) were taken without the zoom--that's just how close we were.

This is Scully. He's the male harbor seal. I LOVE his whiskers and... whisker-like eye lash thingies. :-)



This is the sea lion, Cora. She is just a baby and was sooooo fun to watch. She was very curious and interested in us, but when the trainer/guide came out she just went NUTS! Swimming and jumping and splashing and hopping up to him, then back in the water--just like a puppy whose owner had just come home. It was great! She's learning really well and has already mastered several tricks by voice and hand command:

How to wave...



Fetch toys... (I couldn't get any pictures of her in the water--she was WAY too fast. As soon as the toys hit the water she had scooped them up and was handing them back to the dude!)



Jump up and touch the... thingie...



Leap to the tall deck...



Leap off of the tall deck...



And then relax.



This is Marina. Her main job is to lay there and take it easy. Ha! The guy said that harbor seals usually live 15-20 years in the wild. When she was rescued she had been attacked by a shark and was in pretty bad shape--the didn't know if she was going to make it or not. They estimated her age to be about 20 years. That was 11 years ago!



I've never actually seen seals "perform" before. Of course, they look ridiculous trying to get around on land--they're not nearly as mobile as sea lions and don't have the same capabilities. But the guy says they're just as smart. They can kiss, anyway...



And, believe it or not, Scully can sneeze on command! The real deal, too--with proof. (Yuck!) The guy said that they sometimes need to get mucus samples when doing their check-ups and they figured it would be a lot easier if they could just get the seals to sneeze. Crazy! It was amazing. The seals can also make lots of cool noises. They don't bark like sea lions, but they can make lots of other interesting--and entertaining--sounds.



And he's learning to smile. :-)



That, of course, was my favorite part of the day. I've always had a thing for seals and sea lions and it was just sooooo fun to be up close and see the cool stuff they can do. They're so intelligent and have such great personalities. I want one. (But I'll settle for a poodle, James.) ;-)

After the "show," it was time for the rest of the tour. The guy showed us and told us all about star fish--or sea stars, as he called them. He said that they eat stomach-first... Like, they stick their stomach out there and consume whatever they're eating without having to go through the mouth and throat thing that other animals do. Gross. And if you cut one in half, each half will form into a new star fish. I knew they'd regrow an arm, but I didn't know they could do that!



Sam is a toucher. Joe is a looker.



Here's Sam, inspecting his finger after touching an anemone. Those things are nasty! They can sting and even kill some fish, but don't hurt humans. Unless you touch them with your tongue. I really wonder about the guy who first discovered that... The guide said that sometimes the Indians in the area would chew on it if they had a tooth ache because it would make their mouths go numb and relieve the pain. Nasty!



Here is Katie holding a spike from a sea urchin. It was very cool--looked so perfect, like it had come out of a mold. (Not like you can see it. Just take my word for it.)



And Joe with a sea star.



The next section of the aquarium (though you can't see through any of the glass because of the flash) was actually an old glass bottom boat. How cool is that?! They had lots of neat stuff in there and the guide was pretty impressed when Joe recognized a spiny dog shark... or something like that. (Is there such a thing?! It was some kind of a dog shark, I think!) They had great big crabs walking sideways, of course, along the glass "looking" at us and stingrays--even a cute little itty-bitty one--and sturgeon and rock fish and all sorts of things. And because we had a guide, we LEARNED about a lot of them instead of just seeing them. It's so much better this way!



Then it was back inside to pet a leopard shark. She actually seemed to enjoy it, which seems very strange to me!





And then get eaten by a shark! (Sam sort of missed the mood, Joe had a "Joe" reaction, and Katie did GREAT--I love her face! Ha!)



We left the aquarium and had a decision to make. Either we head south 70 or 80 miles on the same road we came north on, then turn east to go to Interstate 5... or we head northeast for about 45 miles on a NEW road that would take us through a scenic National Forest we hadn't seen yet, the drop down to Interstate 5 from there. It was only 30 or 40 miles more to take the new route, so why not take a brand new pretty drive instead of the same one we already did? And I was sooooo glad we went this way--it was GORGEOUS. The road was wonderful, nice and curvy through great big mountains. I've never seen a prettier river than this. The color was just beautiful and the water was so clean and translucent. Oh, I just loved it and oohed and aahed the whole way. You know, it's interesting... I enjoyed the Joshua Tree stuff, even though I'm not really a desert kind of person. And I LOVE seeing the ocean. And I LOVE seeing the Redwoods--there's not much cooler than that. But the thing that I end up loving the very best is the simple mountain drive with a big blue sky, lots of trees and greenery, and a crystal clear river bubbling over the rocks. It feels like the kind of place I belong, or something--the kind of place that anybody in their right mind would want to live, you know?! Love it, love it, love it. Enough rambling--here are a few pictures.







We went a little farther and discovered why the river was so very purty...



See that?! It was the SMITH RIVER! Who knew?! :-)

And here's a little creek we saw later on...



From there... well, it got interesting. After exiting the National Forest we took the little highway that was supposed to lead us to Happy Camp, California, where we would connect with one more highway that would take us back to the Interstate. In theory. A word of caution to anybody planning a northern California trip... Don't try to take the road to Happy Camp in mid-May! It's PERFECT and very fun to drive (really steep and windy), but then this is what happens...



Ha! Can you believe that?! We had driven an hour to get to this place. We had to drive the 15 miles or so back to the other road... then either retrace our tracks and drive the hour back to Crescent City, then follow the already-travelled road another hour and a half, then take another highway for two or three hours to get to 1-5... OR we could travel yet FARTHER north (!!!) 35 more miles, hit 1-5 there, then travel about 2 hours to get to where we would have hit the Interstate had we taken Route #1. So we really had no choice--we HAD to take the northern route! CRAZY.

But before we left the snow, we had to enjoy it for a few minutes. :-)



Joe always thinks he can take his mother in a snowball fight.



He's always so sorry. :-)



We finally made it to 1-5 way farther north than we ever intended to go (in Oregon, actually--I would have called Devin & Lyndi if I'd had any idea we would be within a few hours of them!!!) and--AT LONG LAST--started south again! Wa-Hoo!!! That means that everything we do from here on out is "on our way home." :-)

Before I go on, let me apologize for the remainder of the pictures in this post. I did no driving at all yesterday because I was feeling so crummy. But I felt fantastical today and the roads were the kind I love and James doesn't, so I drove from the snow stop until we stopped for dinner several hours later. When James is driving, I take pictures. When I'm driving... well, let's just say I'm sure you'll all be impressed by James' talent for photography! Ha!

We missed a breathtaking view of Mt. Shashta in northern California, and I'm still regretting it. The valley below was green and gorgeous, then the peak just sort of stands all alone--not even in a mountain range, or so it seems--and towers over everything else. And it was so bright and beautiful covered in snow! As we drove through the mountains it disappeared from view. When it came into view once more I told James to take some pictures of it for me. This is what we got...





Ha! Could you die??? THANKS, JAMES!!! ;-)

This one is only barely better. I took it myself while driving 70+ miles an hour with the wind trying to rip the camera from my hands. Ha!



And I took this picture of an inactive (we hope) volcano...



And some more of James' handywork...







Don't quit your day job, James! ;-)

It was such a nice and enjoyable drive today. We stopped in Orland, I think, for dinner. We've been really good about eating off of the value menu at fast food joints throughout most of the trip, so it was a nice treat tonight when James whipped out an Olive Garden gift card and we sat down to enjoy a really good meal. :-)

We stopped at a town called Willows to get our motel room tonight because... well, it was starting to get dark. ;-) Everybody is all asnooze right now and I'm not far behind them. I've really enjoyed the slower pace we've had these last two days--I like the relaxing sort of vacations, taking in the sights, avoiding the crowds and chaos, and soaking in all of God's glorious creation. It amazes me to think that so many of the most beautiful things on this earth were most likely formed out of a catastrophe--the flood. A catastrophe molded so many of the mountains and valleys and the rock formations, all of those things and so much more. If God's creation is so breathtaking here after such an event, can you imagine what heaven must be like--never touched by catastrophe?! I'm sure there are pretty rivers and mountains there though. And snow. :-) Whatever it's like, it will be sooooo amazing.