Elephants Seals Near Hearst Castle

Nearby Hearst Castle, there's a beach.  You can't swim on it, though.  Not unless you weigh 2 or more tons and you are a pinniped, at least.  The whole beach is reserved for elephant seals!  If you are ever out near Hearst Castle, you definitely want to check it out!  Here are a bunch of really super cool photos that my mother took of them!

 

 

 

Grover Beach on Dwellable

The Zebras of Hearst Castle

William Randolph Hearst was a man who, long story short, had a ton of money.  Tours of his house near San Luis Obispo in California are simply fantastic, but it makes your own home feel enormously small.  Unless of course, you have a mansion, in which case you're probably all right!

Anyways, Hearst even had a zoo on his grounds!  Most of the animals that he used to have there are dead or have been given to other zoos, but some remain, like a small group of zebras! Here are some pictures that I took of them.  Unfortunately they were really far away, but you can still tell what they are!

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Pier 39

In San Francisco, California, one major attraction is the sea lions of Pier 39.  Every day, hundreds of these pinnipeds will haul themselves out onto the docks to sun themselves and relax.  They have been quite the local attraction, and people get a huge thrill out of seeing them! 

Photo credit for all of these pictures goes to Julie Neher.

San Francisco on Dwellable

Zoo Spotlight: Gatorland

When my family and I visited Disney World in Orlando, Florida in 2007, my dad really wanted to go to this alligator zoo thing that he had gone to before, called Gatorland.  It was really awesome!  So let's do a Zoo Spotlight on it!  Every photo in here was taken by my mother, so there is no need to do a "Photo Credit" for every single one!  First off is the entrance to Gatorland!

Perched right next to the entrance were a number of black vultures!

And, as you can probably imagine of a place called "Gatorland," there were lots and lots of alligators, all over the place!  Probably some of the coolest alligators we saw while we were there, though, were the ones that were involved in the feeding demonstration!

There were lots more alligators too, though.  Some were sunning themselves....

 

 

Now, what was that bird in the last picture of the alligator sunning itself on a dock?  That was a great blue heron, and not only do we have those here in Colorado, but there were a bunch there too!

The great blue herons seemed pretty comfortable in the murky water, although something sinister lurked beneath....

 

 

 

 

 

And as if that wasn't enough, they had a place where you could feed goats, too!

 

So would I recommend Gatorland to anyone who was going to be in the area?  Heck, I would recommend it to anyone who isn't going to be in the area, too!

Buena Ventura Lakes on Dwellable