Field Trips

I want to share one last post about our trip to New Mexico. We had the privilege of doing some very enjoyable sightseeing while we were there. We live not terribly far from the wettest place in the Continental U.S. (The Hawaiian island of Kauai beats it for rainfall.)  Traveling to a desert was a privilege for us. We were very excited to see the sights, sounds, plants and birds of the desert. And we were not disappointed (except for the fact that we never saw a Road Runner. Did I mention that before?)

We spent one day exploring around Jimez Hot Springs, just north of Albuquerque.

Isn’t that a beautiful sculpture? Be glad that you can enjoy it in a picture though, because it stunk, like most hot springs.

It wasn’t really desert up there. Well, I don’t know what the rainfall is so perhaps it qualifies for desert, but there were trees and greenery and some just stunning sights, as you can see.

One of the most exciting things that the kids found was a beaver dam.

They went searching all around for beaver-chewed sticks and trees. It might have been an abandoned dam. It looked like it needed repair work, but maybe that’s the way they like it!

The kids played upstream and downstream from the dam and just thoroughly enjoyed the place.

We also picked up a new bird for our life list at this spot: a MacGillivray Warbler.

The day that we came home, right before we came home, we squeezed in one last thing–a ride on the world’s longest tram, the Sandia Peak Tramway. It was really neat. You should go to Albuquerque just to do that. It is 2.7 miles long and has only two towers. The view from the top is spectacular. Actually the view all the way up and all the way down is spectacular. The only thing is that the next time we go (???) we need to allow a day and go hiking at the top, but if we had done that we would have missed our plane home and that would be bad.

One of the views from the top.

The tram car.

Us at the top. If you’re wondering about my goofy expression–I was cold. Next time, I’ll take a jacket and a something to pull my hair back so that I don’t have to eat it–it was windy.

We got to go a long ways for our last field trip. My husband was working out of town, so we tagged along with him. We love to travel with him, when he has to travel for work. We get to see new things; learn about new places; and visit new museums. This time we got to visit with friends and family too, which made it extra special.

One of the days that we were in New Mexico, we spent at the Albuquerque Aquarium and Zoo. Why is it that zoos are just so much fun? No matter how many times you take kids to a zoo, they’ll always be happy to go again. We hadn’t been to a zoo for quite awhile, so that made it even more fun.

Here are a few of the favorite things that we saw.

We liked the Trumpeter Swan because he swam right up to us. I think he was used to getting hand-outs, but I was quite happy to take his picture. We saw Swans when we were in Malheur, but those ones weren’t used to getting hand-outs so they swam the other way. Even though seeing birds in the wild is a special treat, seeing a beautiful bird like this up close, no matter where, is just special.

We saw several birds at the zoo, but the most important one was a Road Runner. I was hoping with all of my heart that we would get to see a Road Runner in the wild. I’ve never seen one before. Everybody I talked to said, "Oh, I’m sure you will." Well, we didn’t. Fortunately, though we did get to see one at the zoo. So I can’t complain, I suppose, but I still really want to see one that’s not in a cage, so I’m trying to plan my next trip there just so I can see a Road Runner. Not really.

This guy was hugemongous. I made up that word, but it’s still true. We’d never seen anything like this before and there was two of them. He might even be older than my grandma. (Don’t worry, Grandma, he looks a lot older than you too!!)

Now this was the most exciting thing that we saw. We stayed and watched this little giraffe for a long, long time. I say little, but actually, he’s quite a bit taller than me. They’re around 6 feet tall when they’re born. It seems like babies from almost every creature are just cute. (There are a few that I don’t think are cute, even as babies.)

The zoo was full of babies and pregnant mamas while we were there. The zookeepers must have thought that it was time to really increase the population of the zoo’s inhabitants. We saw a baby chimp, a baby camel, a baby elephant, a pregnant snow leopard and what looked like a pregnant zebra and of course, the baby giraffe.

But the cutest babies of all were mine!!

We got to visit the High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon. I couldn’t believe how long we spent at this museum. We were there for around four to five hours. Usually for me, a museum is exhausted in around two – two and a half hours, but this museum was like two museums in one: they had lots and lots on natural history and tons and tons on pioneer and native history. So on a five star scale, I definitely give this museum five stars. If you’re ever in Bend, Oregon for any reason, go visit this museum. It’s interesting to kids and it’s interesting to people a lot older than me, so it’s a great place.

They had a Bobcat and this Canada Lynx, which we watched for ages. These were G’tums favorite exhibits.

There was a Raptor Center. This Ferruginous Hawk was brought out during their presentation by one of the keepers. JD Boy was very happy, because he was the only one in the audience of mostly adults who was able to identify the bird. I was glowing a bit myself. He had gone around and looked at all the different posters in the Raptor Center before the presentation and had me read the name on each one to him. He immediately recognized that this bird matched one of the posters and he was right!

Here’s a smiling little guy, riding a real slow moving elk!

JD Boy posing with a real stuffed cougar.

We saw all kinds of animals that are specific to the area. We saw amphibians and reptiles (neither of which are my favorites!) black widow spiders (that might be ever worse) and fish and birds. We got to see a mother Mallard just outside of the museum with a bunch of newly hatched fluffy yellow duckings. That was free, but it was also a real attraction! We also got to see a river otter real close and hear a whole presentation about the river otter.

We got to take a nature walk with a wild-plant expert. He told us that it really isn’t a desert there, because they get 11 inches of rain per year and the definition of a desert is 10 or less. He helped us learn to identify several plants. I enjoyed that. Birds I’m getting better at identifying, but as for plants, I still have quite a ways to go.

Besides all of the nature that we learned about, we also learned about some history too. They had a great exhibit on pioneer life and Indian life in the area. We learned about people moving west, about trappers, about miners, about local businesses of the era.

Zippy is trying out a straw tick. She didn’t think it was that great either. We’ve read about them in our history studies a few times and I tried to tell her what they were like. Now she knows!

Trapper tent.

Canoe made from reeds.

Zippy took all of these pictures with her new camera (except the one of her). She sure loves being able to record the things that are interesting to her and I enjoy seeing what she takes pictures of.

We got to see so much more. We went through a real, old-fashioned, non-electric saw mill that still operates a couple of days a week, besides getting to look at a miniture model. We got to go through a gold mine. That was the least favorite part. It scared my youngest one quite a bit. We climbed in a teepee.

We just saw and did so many things. The exhibits were nicely organized and presented. It was definitely a great museum. You’ll have to visit it one day!

We were privileged to get to go to the zoo with family the day before Thanksgiving. (This is getting up late, but that’s just how it goes sometimes.) I never know which is more fun at the zoo: watching the animals or watching the kids. They had so much fun especially since they had cousins to go with.

One funny thing happened. I was hanging behind with my husband because he was trying to take some pictures of the ducks and all the kids (six, ages 8 and under) ran ahead with my sister-in-law. A mom with one child came through the doors as we were going out. They had just seen our little mob. The little girl was looking up at her mom saying, "Mom, why does that lady (my sister-in-law) have so many kids?" I had to chuckle.

I still had to regularly count all the kids to make sure that we had six of them with us. G’tums has this very bad habit of wandering off. Sometimes I can be standing there calling and calling him, but something else has his attention and he doesn’t hear me. Anyway, even though we did have to chase him down a few times, we had the best helpers–his older cousins. They kept really good track of him.

The favorite thing at the Portland Zoo is feeding the Lorikeets. The kids love it. I’m not too sure about it, because there is no shelter to hide from the birds and I’ve been bombed before in their cage. This time we all made it out safely.

This is one of the pictures of the ducks that my husband managed. It’s my favorite shot from the day.

Well, I did two posts of things we did a few weeks ago. I still have a list of things to show that the kids have done, but I decided that today I’m going to put up something recent–our visit to the Seattle Aquarium on Sunday.

I was a little concerned when we arrived at the Aquarium because they were hosting trick-or-treating there, but it wasn’t extra ordinarily crowded. We also spent quite a bit of time fighting with the credit card machine where we paid our parking. It must have been cold, because it was going very slow.

G’tums hadn’t been to the Aquarium since he was a baby so I was especially looking forward to seeing how he would enjoy it. He’s the age when zoos and aquariums are the most fun. And I wasn’t a bit disappointed. He loved it.

He looks concerned that he got his fingers wet, but within a minute his whole sleeve was wet.

They loved touching all the things in the touching pools, there were all kinds of things from gooey sea cucumbers to prickly urchins.

The neatest thing we saw was the octopus. Right now they have a huge one in there. I heard somebody say that it had gone from 15 pounds to over 50 in a year and a half. It was a visitor talking, not an employee or volunteer, so I don’t know. All in all, we definitely got the best views of an octopus that we ever have before there.

Then there was a section about whales and the kids got to ride a whale. Here’s the proof:

Are you impressed? I was!

Okay, last but not least is my favorite photo that I took. It was of a clownfish. You probably figured that we should see some fish there right? Well we did, but it’s so hard to take pictures through the glass. But this one I even managed to take through the glass. My husband let me use his camera while we were at the Aquarium, because the battery on mine was dead. His has so many features that I don’t always get things set right, but I’m right proud of this shot!