Amazing Thursday-2/24

Today was an amazing day.  We started off leaving Monterey and headed towards Santa Cruz.  We stopped off at a spot on the road when we saw a bunch of sea lions on a ramp by a boat.  There were at least 100 of them all bunched up and making such noises!!  We all inched our way down to the ramp and were about 50 feet away. The sea lions all just looked at us, made noises, and they didn't seem to mind us taking pictures of them.  Do you know the difference between a seal lion and a seal??  A sea lion has little ear flaps and can us its flippers to help walk on land.  Seals have no outside ears, just slits, and they only use their bodies to move. They can't use their flippers to help them move or get up on land.  While watching the sea lions, along came some sea otters!!!!  The seat otters were very funny and seemed to be teasing the sea lions.  Sea otters are very cute, have fur, and roll over and float on their backs. They are very, very cute and playful!!!
After taking our pics, we moved on to a state park called Natural Bridges.  There was once 3 natural bridges here, but now only one remains.  At this location, there is a Monarch Sanctuary, but there were no Monarchs there today. Actually the naturalist told us that the Monarchs have left that location much earlier this year.  So instead of looking for the Monarchs, we walked down to the beach area and saw the natural bridge.   There were muscles all over the bottom of the bridge which is made of rock.  We were also very lucky to see 2 pacific starfish.  They were purple in color, very pretty to look at.  Since we didn't see any Monarchs at this location, we decided to head up the road 3 miles to Lighthouse Field.  This was another sanctuary.  We did see some clusters of Monarchs there, and we were all thrilled that we ended up there today.  What great pics we all took!!!

Then we were on our way up the coast to Henry Cowell State park.  This would be our first real look at the Coastal Redwoods.  We were so lucky to have two wonderful tour guides (better known as Docents), Ken and Anita.  A husband and wife team originally from the NY area. They were amazing, and there is only one word to describe our visit to this state park.... WOW!!!!!  We all walked through the park viewing the Redwoods with eyes wide open and jaws dropping at each turn.  Did you know that in this park amongst the Redwoods there are also some Douglas Fir trees??  The Douglas Fir that are there have grown to be almost as large as some of the Redwoods.  Their root systems are very different. The Redwoods do not have a tap root.  Their root system goes horizontally underground, and will spread out as far as they are tall.  So if a Redwood is 200 feet tall, their roots will spread out 200 feet.  This makes the Redwoods very stable in the ground. The Douglas Fir are different. They have a tap root and some spreading of their roots underground, but nothing like the Redwoods. Because of this, the DF trees will more easily fall over.  The tallest Redwoods can grow to be 380 feet tall and be 2200 years old, yes, I said 2200 years old!! That is not a typo!!!  Amazing....

We all enjoyed this day and were very thankful that the rain held off until we were done.  I found once again today many new books to bring back to my first graders.   I am now wondering, how in the world am I going to get all those books back to NJ??  My luggage will be very heavy!!! I have also been collecting many post cards.  I thought the class would love to see some of those as well.  I have taken about 600 pics so far.  One more day to go... We will be heading to Muir Woods first thing in the morning.... and yes, rain gear will be needed for sure.  They say it may even snow here tomorrow!!!  It is raining very heavy now...... We have been very lucky with the weather so far, so one day is not so bad, we will dry off!!!

I did get to call in again today to talk to my first graders.  So nice to hear their voices!!!  I can't wait to show them all the great books and pics!!!  We are going to be reading all about seals, sea otters, sea lions, elephant seals, and Redwoods!!!  So much to share!!

Until tomorrow!!!