December 13, 2001
We're in the southeastern corner of the Mojave desert in southern California. About 5 miles east of the little town of Niland, which is slightly east the Salton Sea. The level of the sea is about 270 some odd feet below "sea level," and there's an agricultural tank with a line drawn on it proudly proclaiming Niland as being at "Sea Level." But more on that later. Let's pick up where we left off.......
On the left is yours truly waiting (in vain, as it turned out) for my virus protection software to download and "restore" to my HDD so I'd quit infecting friends and family. I ended up buying the 2002 version and having it Fed Ex'd to me here a the Pio Pico Thousand Trails preserve, and that little hitch in rebuilding my computer after the latest crash is taken care of. I hereby offer profuse and profound apologies to any and all I may have inadvertently contaminated. And on the right is my look-alike, an erstwhile pool player. A close look at the gentleman (with the hat on the left) will reveal his keys hanging on his right side. Mine are always on the left, and tucked into a pocket so they won't bang into things.
No visit to anyplace near San Diego is complete without a visit to Sea World, home of Shamu the killer whale, and so ours is now complete. Most these pictures need no explanation except perhaps the last one. The name of the sea lion show was called "Fools with Tools", and was magical in its variety. The trainer is talking to an otter that would come out and mess up whatever was going on, apparently on some cue I could never find. I laughed so hard my sides were hurting, and I missed part of the show because of the tears in my eyes. That one show alone was worth the price of admission as far as I was concerned.
While the trainer and the seal lions were "talking," the little otter managed to distract the trainer, and eventually she fell into the tank.
So, of course, one of the sea lions had to rescue her and do mouth to mouth resuscitation. And for the first time in my life I watched a "trained" walrus. Not very fast moving, for sure, but hilarious in the skit. It is such a blob!
Couple of noteworthy things here, at least to us. We'd never seen a whale completely out of the water on the bank like this, and we'd never seen a trainer ride on the whale's belly holding on to its mouth as it went around the pool.
And then after hopping up on the platform and taking a bow, the trainer stepped back onto the whale who was doing barrel rolls, and the trainer had to act like a lumberjack doing a log roll. They did the entire length of the pool doing this!
And this was the crowning touch. The trainer is standing on the animal's mouth as it's jumping out of the water. As the tail cleared the water and on its way back down, it gave a "jerk," flinging the trainer further in the air who did a bunch of flips (can you see him?) before entering the water in an Olympic games style dive. Amazing.
As final bows were taken, one female whale and her 3-month old baby came out and we got to watch some early training being done, and then the "final four" took their bows. Great shows, and well worth the money to go see it. We find we really like being in these kind of places on the "off season" because of the lack of a crowd and the relaxed atmosphere.
Flowers in December are always worth a picture, and on the right is Barby making a valiant attempt at petting a bottle nosed dolphin. She failed to pet any animals, but did manage to get her arm good and wet. With salt water!
I found other things to interest myself with--a snowy egret and glaucous gull. And there's Barb "petting" a huge bat ray in the petting pool which seemed to enjoy the human touch.
Flamingos, scarlet ibis, black swan, and lotsa ducks being fed, sea lions wanting to be fed, and a shark or two swimming overhead that made me happy to have lots of glass between them and us; fascinating to walk through the glass tunnel and see such creatures so close to us. We enjoyed the "natural" settings of so many of these displays, and the animals must have as well because Sea World is proud of their breeding program and their ability to provide other facilities with animals as a result of their success.