Another day in Santa Barbara

Friday we started our Passport adventure, which entitles free entry to a bunch of educational places and a free t-shirt at the end. One place we visited was this cool aquarium on the pier. This gal clearly loves her job as the manager of the touch tanks. This on has sting rays, little sharks, and some other kind of fish in it. They were all safe to pet. The kids could have stayed for hours here touching sea creatures.
The educational activity for this stop was a trip to the Wet Deck. I tried to get a good picture but to no avail. This divider guarded a big square in the floor that was open to the ocean.
The captain of the wet deck was a scientist that showed us how to capture water in this little tank and we did a bunch of tests on it. You can kind of see down through the floor here, but it still doesn't really show the water. I was fascinated by all of this.
Can you see that giant lobster? My photographic genius is not much help, I know. There was another touch tank upstairs that held sea cucumbers, giant sea snails, tons of star fish and a bunch of hermit crabs. It was so cool. I took a lot more pictures but somehow lost them all.

We also went to the zoo, but you don't know any of these people. I don't either because I lifted these pictures from the zoo website. The zoo houses giraffes, lions, lots of birds, elephants, cockroaches, and domestic rabbits,the lush Garden-of-Eden-esque beauty of the central coast, and this train where we learned that lions sleep 80% of the day and can eat 45 pounds of meat in one sitting which is why our tour guide wants to be a lion.


For lunch we stopped at the market and picked up Clam Chowder, Tri-Tip, a deli sandwich, and four lunchables for the gourmet eaters. Dale then proceeded to this amazing park. The best I could find as far as a visual was this collage. The top photo shows the main attraction, playground equipment themed as a collosal castle. Since there are no people in sight, you'll have to use your imagination a little, but that fence around the outside is a little over waist high. It really is quite impressive. The enormity of it made us both a little nervous so we only spent a little time there. Even with one of us on each side and Leila in tow, we couldn't see all the kids at the same time. It was worse when about eighty kids came marching down the street from a nearby school to spend their recess. They came like a swarm of ants enveloping all of us for just a little while. Shortly after they left, we left. The guys sitting along the curb in sports cars looked a little too shifty for me.


It was quite an adventure and we were wiped out when it was over with. Keep in mind, I am wiped out after a short trip to the doctor's office. As matter of fact if I am talking on the phone and I have to pick up too many things off the floor, it takes about fifteen minutes for me to catch my breath. That's the breaks.


Aside: Leila just came in singing, "oot, e-et is, oot e-et is..." I'll have to try to capture that on video.