This morning we got up and headed to La Jolla to check out the aquarium and the beaches there. The Scripps Aquarium was our first stop. First up was the octopus. It had a small tank and it kept "walking" back and forth across the glass, like it was bored out of its mind. I felt sorry for it, but it was a great opportunity to check out all the suckers on its legs:
We saw some jelly fish too, which are one of my favorites. They look so graceful and delicate floating through the water:
They also had a lot of sea horse exhibits, and seahorses ranging from the size of a dime, to the size of my hand. They also had these ones, which were very strange looking indeed:
There was a large area devoted to global warming, and one of the features was a newsroom where the kids could record themselves and play back a tape of them being newscasters. Rowan just jumped around, but Killian read the script for a while, until it started going too fast for him!
Our last stop there was an outside area with a small shark tank, and this monster who was eager to swallow up my whole family. I love Killian's anguished expression!
We were all really disappointed with the aquarium :( It was small, the glass on the tanks was dirty and scratched, making it impossible to get a decent picture, and there wasn't a great variety of animals to look at. I guess we are spoiled having such an awesome aquarium here in Oregon at Newport Beach!
After the aquarium, we headed down to La Jolla beach. I had read about a place called the Children's Pool online, and was really excited to check it out. In the 1930's the city built a seawall to close in an area of the ocean and make it safe for children to play in. In the 1970's, harbor seals decided that it would be an excellent place for them to live, so they moved right in. For a few years people and seals co-existed, until the beach was deemed unsafe because of high bacteria levels in the water due to the seals excrement. Now the beach is roped off to people, and the seals have begun gathering in larger numbers. I read that the children's pool beach offers the closest look at wild harbor seals anywhere on the west coast of North America, so I was excited to take the kids there to see them up close and personal.
We parked and walked down to the pool, and there were already a lot of people there checking out the seals. Turns out that December - May is pupping season, so we got to see plenty of baby seals with their mama's:
We were able to get so close to the seals, there were a bunch of them directly below the sea wall we stood on. Most of them were lounging around sleeping, but there were a few awake and playing in the water. They were so much fun to watch!
After the kids got tired of watching the seals, we walked over to the beach that was on the other side of the children's pool. We got there at low tide, so there were tons of tide pools to explore. Rowan is usually pretty adventurous, so I thought she would love walking out on the rocks, but she kept squealing "Eeeeeeeeewwww" every time her foot touched down...needless to say, she lasted just long enough to snap a couple pictures!
The kids and I headed back to the safety of the sand to hunt for shells, while Matthew continued exploring the tide pools. We had so much fun searching for shells, and found a lot of really neat ones.
The sand there is so much different than Oregon beach sand! The only comparison that I can think of is table salt (Oregon sand) to Kosher salt (California sand). It was a lot thicker, and grittier which I actually liked because it meant it didn't blow all over the place when the wind picked up. That's the biggest reason I don't like the beaches here, the sand blows around and gets absolutely everywhere. If we had California beaches, I think I would want to go a lot more often!
We lounged around the beach for a few hours before getting hungry and heading out for something to eat. It seems like almost everything in San Diego closes at 5 (the zoo, museums, tourist attractions) so we weren't sure what we were going to do that night. After a quick internet search, we decided to go to Seaport Village, which is a little shopping center in the San Diego harbor. The first thing we saw after parking was a guy standing on the other side of the boardwalk next to all these rocks:
He had stacked them all by hand, balancing them without glue or anything to bind them. He took one stack down, and showed us how he balanced them as he built it back up. It was amazing! He said he has been stacking rocks for 5+ years, and said that he can "read" the rock and know how to best balance it. We were all pretty impressed!
After a stop to ride the carousel, we walked down the boardwalk, towards where the Midway was docked. While we were there on Wednesday doing our tour, I had seen this cool statue of a sailor kissing his girlfriend/wife and wanted to see it close up. By the time we got there, the sun was setting so I couldn't get a great picture in the fading light, but it was still fun to check out.
Another picture of the Midway:
The kids found this funny sculpture to pose in:
We decided to check out a couple more stores before heading back to the hotel. My favorite was this awesome hat store that lots of funny hats. There was on of a can of Spam, and hats with fake hair attached, but these ones were our favorites:
Killian is wearing a flamingo, I have on a goldfish, and Rowan is doing the funky chicken. We giggled so hard at all the kooky hats, and had such a blast trying them all on. Our last night in San Diego was a fun one, but we still had a few more things to look forward to the next day before our flight left....
We saw some jelly fish too, which are one of my favorites. They look so graceful and delicate floating through the water:
They also had a lot of sea horse exhibits, and seahorses ranging from the size of a dime, to the size of my hand. They also had these ones, which were very strange looking indeed:
There was a large area devoted to global warming, and one of the features was a newsroom where the kids could record themselves and play back a tape of them being newscasters. Rowan just jumped around, but Killian read the script for a while, until it started going too fast for him!
Our last stop there was an outside area with a small shark tank, and this monster who was eager to swallow up my whole family. I love Killian's anguished expression!
We were all really disappointed with the aquarium :( It was small, the glass on the tanks was dirty and scratched, making it impossible to get a decent picture, and there wasn't a great variety of animals to look at. I guess we are spoiled having such an awesome aquarium here in Oregon at Newport Beach!
After the aquarium, we headed down to La Jolla beach. I had read about a place called the Children's Pool online, and was really excited to check it out. In the 1930's the city built a seawall to close in an area of the ocean and make it safe for children to play in. In the 1970's, harbor seals decided that it would be an excellent place for them to live, so they moved right in. For a few years people and seals co-existed, until the beach was deemed unsafe because of high bacteria levels in the water due to the seals excrement. Now the beach is roped off to people, and the seals have begun gathering in larger numbers. I read that the children's pool beach offers the closest look at wild harbor seals anywhere on the west coast of North America, so I was excited to take the kids there to see them up close and personal.
We parked and walked down to the pool, and there were already a lot of people there checking out the seals. Turns out that December - May is pupping season, so we got to see plenty of baby seals with their mama's:
We were able to get so close to the seals, there were a bunch of them directly below the sea wall we stood on. Most of them were lounging around sleeping, but there were a few awake and playing in the water. They were so much fun to watch!
After the kids got tired of watching the seals, we walked over to the beach that was on the other side of the children's pool. We got there at low tide, so there were tons of tide pools to explore. Rowan is usually pretty adventurous, so I thought she would love walking out on the rocks, but she kept squealing "Eeeeeeeeewwww" every time her foot touched down...needless to say, she lasted just long enough to snap a couple pictures!
The kids and I headed back to the safety of the sand to hunt for shells, while Matthew continued exploring the tide pools. We had so much fun searching for shells, and found a lot of really neat ones.
The sand there is so much different than Oregon beach sand! The only comparison that I can think of is table salt (Oregon sand) to Kosher salt (California sand). It was a lot thicker, and grittier which I actually liked because it meant it didn't blow all over the place when the wind picked up. That's the biggest reason I don't like the beaches here, the sand blows around and gets absolutely everywhere. If we had California beaches, I think I would want to go a lot more often!
We lounged around the beach for a few hours before getting hungry and heading out for something to eat. It seems like almost everything in San Diego closes at 5 (the zoo, museums, tourist attractions) so we weren't sure what we were going to do that night. After a quick internet search, we decided to go to Seaport Village, which is a little shopping center in the San Diego harbor. The first thing we saw after parking was a guy standing on the other side of the boardwalk next to all these rocks:
He had stacked them all by hand, balancing them without glue or anything to bind them. He took one stack down, and showed us how he balanced them as he built it back up. It was amazing! He said he has been stacking rocks for 5+ years, and said that he can "read" the rock and know how to best balance it. We were all pretty impressed!
After a stop to ride the carousel, we walked down the boardwalk, towards where the Midway was docked. While we were there on Wednesday doing our tour, I had seen this cool statue of a sailor kissing his girlfriend/wife and wanted to see it close up. By the time we got there, the sun was setting so I couldn't get a great picture in the fading light, but it was still fun to check out.
Another picture of the Midway:
The kids found this funny sculpture to pose in:
We decided to check out a couple more stores before heading back to the hotel. My favorite was this awesome hat store that lots of funny hats. There was on of a can of Spam, and hats with fake hair attached, but these ones were our favorites:
Killian is wearing a flamingo, I have on a goldfish, and Rowan is doing the funky chicken. We giggled so hard at all the kooky hats, and had such a blast trying them all on. Our last night in San Diego was a fun one, but we still had a few more things to look forward to the next day before our flight left....