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

Bears in the Campground!

One morning at around five o'clock in the morning in Yosemite, we heard a bunch of people yelling and banging pots and pans and stuff.  We were all pretty irritated: were they drunk, teenagers, or just plain obnoxious?  Well, as it turns out, it was none of the above: they were trying to scare a black bear away from a nearby tent cabin across the way!

Black bear in the tent cabin village in Yosemite.  Photo Credit Julie Neher

Black bear in the tent cabin village in Yosemite.  A pretty fuzzy photo, but you can see the black bear trying to eat some of the food out of the food lockers!  Photo Credit Julie Neher

My mom only got a few pictures, but I will remember it forever, it was super, super cool! 

The tent cabin village in Yosemite.  Those giant green bins that you can see next to each cabin are where you had to put everything that had any sort of smell to keep bears from eating it!  Photo Credit Julie Neher

Bears and Bikes in Lake Tahoe

We stopped for a few nights in Lake Tahoe on our California driving trip in 2010 which, by the way was awesome (both the trip and Lake Tahoe!)  I would definitely love to go back there sometime!  The one part that I didn't really enjoy was the bike riding, I'm just not the bikes biggest fan, I don't know why.  However, I am certainly very glad that we went, as if we hadn't, we wouldn't have seen....the bears!

Black bear cub!  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

Black bear!  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

Black bear!  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

Black bear cub!  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

Black bear!  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

Black bear!  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

Black bear!  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

Black bear!  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

Black bear!  Photo Credit: Julie Neher

We saw someone looking through the trees, and when they saw us approaching, they motioned for us to stop.  We stopped, followed their line of sight, and saw an adult female black bear being followed by two cubs!  It was really cool, and they were super cute!

Al Tahoe on Dwellable