Animal Behavior San Diego Trip

On of many reasons why studying biology is awesome is that there are sweet field trips that are involved.  My animal behavior class and two other classes at SUU went to San Diego for a field trip.  The cost was $25 a person and spouses could come along!

So the trip had a rough start.  We were to meet to drive down in the SUU vans at 2:00am Saturday morning. We set our alarm for 1:30pm on accident... Luckily I had to use the restroom at 2:20 am but the caravan had already left us! I called my professor and they were only fifteen minutes away so they pulled off at a rest area to wait for us.  We were very lucky that they weren't too far, and that there were two seats left in the van!

We didn't have to drive so we got to sleep almost the entire way.  It made the trip go by quick. When we arrived we first stopped at the Birch Aquarium in San Diego.  One of the professors had the in's and we got in for free!

There were a lot of really cool aquatic animals, our favorites were the many species of sea horses and jellyfish!

The Aquarium has an outside exhibit and this was our first breath of the ocean air... So refreshing, and WARM!  We got to touch some sea cucumbers, sea stars, and sea urchins.  

After the Aquarium we went and set up camp on the Beach! our camp was like a camper world except on the beach.  Later that evening we took a drive to check out the tide pools in La Holla. Our camera was left in another van so no photos.  Following the tide pools Nate and I got to eat at the restaurant that we ate at during our honeymoon! Al Norte'! It was fun to reminisce of old times!

The next day was Sunday and we weren't able to go to a church, but we did go to a huge park called Balboa park.  There were lots of crazy growing plants.

There were also lots of museums there, but they all had entry fees and we didn't want to spend any money on the Sabbath. 

There were a lot of free gardens that we go to see.  After them we sat on a bench and talked about how the beauty of the earth is a gift from God.  Heavenly Father knew this life would be hard and blessed us with a beautiful earth that could lift our spirits.  Nate related a scripture about this.  I love how much knowledge he has of the gospel.  

 A few of the plants.  We thought this one looked like antlers mounted on a wall. The picture below of leafs with swirls!! Nate tries to make sure that every picture has someone in it so as to make it more interesting.

We met a few birds along the way.  There were so man different kinds that were all up for adoption.  I like birds but never want one squawkin' in our house! 

It was trying to clean my hair.

The lady who was helping us with the birds saw I was taking a picture and told Nate to relax for the picture.  So this is Nate's relaxed face while a bird is on his shoulder.  

There were also cottages that showed cultures from around the world.  We made sure to visit some family favorites.  In the Poland house we got to try some sausage on crackers and saw some life sized puppets dressed in colorful outfits.  We were wondering if Erik Fox ever crossed these things??

Denmark! We didn't see Noah there....

Turns out that Legos were invented by a man from Denmark.

We also visited Norway since I have a lot of family that originates from there.  They gave us goat cheese (that looks like peanut butter) on toast.  It was different, but good.  

The rest of Sunday we played card games with some friends and had a BBQ with burgers and salmon.  

Our final adventure was the next day, Monday, at the San Diego Zoo! It was huge.

I have do to a research project for my animal behavior class and decided to do it on the kangaroo's at the Zoo.  I recorded the time they spent either doing activities that used energy, or no energy (whether or not they were thermoregulating).  Because in the wild, kangaroos just lay around all day and eat at night to avoid the heat and save energy.  But here at the zoo, they were pretty active.  My hypothesis is first because they don't have to search for their own food and use extra energy, and they also aren't in as hot of a place.  These are red kangaroos. 

Nate likes Meerkats......  Remember Timon from Lion King?

Because the zoo was HUGE, we didn't want to waste time to stop and eat, so we ate our lunch on the go. It proved to be a great idea because when we had food in our hands, the animals were more friendly and got way close to us.  NO, we did not feed the animals.

Another Meerkat, staring at us because we had food.

Nate liked the Meerkat and the komodo dragon.  I Liked the big tortoises! They were huge and cute!

The zoo had three aviary cages (we felt like we were in Jurassic park, in the Pterodactyl cages?? (ps. pterodactyls aren't really dinosaurs)) and we would be in the cages with the birds! It was so cool! In this picture if you look to the left of Nate there is a feeding dish coming up and there is a large bird feeding from it! 

 At the end of the day at the zoo we visited basically every animal! We walked fast/non-stop for almost seven hours! whew! Our legs were sore the next day, but it was worth seeing all of Gods many creations:)

The last night in Carlsbad, California.  We were treated to a beautiful sunset from our camp.  When we got back from the zoo we realized that we hadn't even set foot in the ocean yet, we were so busy! So that night after dinner we took a walk on the beach in the dark. It was relaxing and romantic;)

On the drive home we were a bit nervous that our car would get a ticket or be towed from being at the rest stop for so long, but we were blessed yet again and our car was still there, ticket free.