Milling About in Muir Woods

When our family visited Muir Woods in California, we were all completely blown away by the immensity and the wonder of the trees.  They were simply enormous!  The coastal redwood can grow to enormous proportions, and now one really knows exactly how big they can grow.  The tallest one, however, is a stunning 379.1 feet tall.  That's about the size of a 37 story building.  Holy cow.  Anyways, I definitely recommend checking out Muir Woods if you are ever in the area, it will definitely make you feel pretty humble!

 

 

 The photo credit for all of the photos in this post go to Julie Neher.

Stinson Beach on Dwellable

Sanctuary Spotlight: The Marine Mammal Center

While in San Francisco, my family and I decided to check out the nearby Marine Mammal Center, and boy are we glad we did!  It was a really, really cool place, and we got to learn all about the local marine mammals, as well as what is being done to conserve and preserve them!  In the picture below, you can see my sister standing next to a life-size statue of an elephant seal!

We also got to see all of the enclosures where the various seals and sea lions are kept while they are being rehabilitated.

 

 

We also got to watch (and, in the case of my sister, be a part of!) a really cool and interesting demonstration about how the people who work at the Marine Mammal Center are able to capture wounded and injured seals and sea lions, and bring them in to the center for care!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo credit for all of the photos in this post goes to Julie Neher.

Tiburon on Dwellable

Museum Spotlight: Fernbank Museum of Natural History

In 2006, my family and I went down to Georgia (we were lookin' for a soul to steal) to visit our really good friends the Guinees (we were way behind, and we were willing to make a deal).  On our trip, we visited what is now one of my most favorite museums of all time: the Fernbank Museum of Natural History.  While Fernbank certainly has a large number of really cool exhibits, easily my favorite one was the one around which most of the museum is built: an enormous room with a Giganotosaurus attacking an Argentinosaurus, one of the largest theropod dinosaurs known to science attacking one of the largest sauropod dinosaurs known to science.  It was simply fantastic!  In the upper levels of the atrium thing, you could also see fossil skeletons of various pterosaurs, and there was also a fossil crocodile on the ground floor!  Fantastic!

 

 

 

Another thing that I thought was really cool was a large, life-size statue of Stegosaurus outside of the museum!  Below is a picture of my sister and I acting like dinosaur in front of it!

 All of the photos in this post were taken by Julie Neher.

Atlanta Metro Area on Dwellable

Seals and Sea Otters in Monterey Bay

Right after my family and I visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, we went out to eat at a Bubba Gump on the dock.  As we looked out at the bay, we saw a seal pop its head up out of the water!  We took a bunch of pictures, but it wasn't long before it disappeared beneath the waves again.  After looking at the pictures, I came to the conclusion that it was not, in fact, a seal, but actually a sea otter!  My bad.

The seal that's not really a seal but actually a sea otter

After a few more minutes, one of us suddenly realized that not all of the lumps of floating kelp out there were actually kelp: some of them were actually wild sea otters!  It was really, really cool!  Being a native Coloradoan, a sea otter is pretty exotic, especially a wild one!  Here are a bunch of pictures that my mother and I took!

A wild sea otter!

The sea otters are off to the right, not the thing right in the center of the photo, that is a kelp thing

The sea otter is a little below and to the left of center

The group of three little dots in the middle-ish of the photo, as well as the little dot thing off to the right of the picture (almost out of the shot) are all sea otters.  The other random dot, to the left of the three other dots, is the same lump of kelp that is in the photo two above this one.

The sea otter-looking dot in the a bit above the center of the photo is the sea otter

Carmel on Dwellable

The Seals of San Diego

When we went to San Diego to visit our cousins, we also went to a place nearby in Solana Beach to see some seals!  The seals were all just kind of hanging out, and we could look down on them from above.  A lot of them were really, really cute, and some of them were even swimming around!  Most of them were just chilling on the sand, warming themselves up on the beach!  I don't think a human could EVER get that relaxed!  Enjoy these pictures taken by my mother!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Photo Credit for all of the photos in this post goes to Julie Neher.

Solana Beach on Dwellable