Another adventure...

I'm catching up on pictures again!  Here is the way strawberries grow down here!  In most cases, they plant them like this and then every year when they are done bearing berries, they pull the plants up and plant a different crop in their place.  Then in the fall they plant berry plants again.  That's how they get such big beautiful berries, I guess!  They're also clean when they come out of the field, so you can eat them right off the vine! 

I thought this display was wonderful.  This is only half of the booth...there are that many berries on the other side too. 

Today for our adventure we went to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium to let the kids see Winter, the dolphin that got caught in a crab trap and lost her tail.  Dolphins move by an up-and-down movement of their tail, whereas whales move by a sideways motion of their tail.  Since Winter lost her tail, she would have to move like whales and that would cause her to have problems with her backbone, so they have been working to fit her with a prosthetic tail.  While we were there she didn't have her prosthetic tail on - she can only wear it 5-6 times a day.  Besides getting to see Winter and some of the props from the movie, we saw other marine animals and the kids got to pet stingrays!!!  Yuck!  Below are some shots I got today.  This first one is a starfish moving along the side of the tank. 

Here's one of the stringrays the kids could touch.  You'll notice that he's been de-barbed!  They de-barb them every 3 months or so. 

 Here is one of the sea otters that was sleeping on his/her blankie!!

The star of the aquarium, though, is definitely Winter!  She is playing with one of the handlers.  I couldn't get a good shot of her - too many people in front of me!!  It's kind of like at the State Fair and trying to get a good shot of the butter cow!!  You can see her "stub" of a tail.  The yellow thing down by her tail is just a toy.  She didn't have her prosthetic tail on while we were there.

We loved this sea turtle.  He/she really put on a show for us.  The reason his butt is up in the air is that he's been hit by a boat and gotten air under his shell.  Therefore, he has trouble with flotation.  The air bubble is closer to his backside and he can't even himself out. 

Isn't that a beautiful face???

After all of this, we took off for Sarasota to see the Lipizzaner show.  Unfortunately it was raining so we didn't get to go!  So, we just stopped at Maury & Roberta's and ate supper with them.  We made it back to our house without the girls getting upset and wanting to go home.  Guess what else??  Kelly lost a tooth on the way here from Dad's!  I guess/hope the tooth fairy finds her way here!! 

Tomorrow the girls are going with grandpa to see the snakes at the nature preserve.  Then we're planning to do some swimming!!  More later...