a trip to Turtle Bay

Turtle Bay is a self-defined “exploration park” – part museum, part zoo, part playground, surrounded by walking trails, the Sacramento River, and a really pretty bridge. Despite being pretty small, it’s well done and a fun place to be, and Dan and I were excited to receive a family membership to the park for Christmas. My sister Kaeli also was gifted a membership (thanks parents!), and on Saturday afternoon we (plus sister Kassi, who can be included on either membership) decided to make a quick visit. And when I say quick, I mean REALLY quick – we didn’t realized they closed so early and had only a half hour to spend. We packed it full of  fun, though, as you can see:

Damien is ready to go, with Alligator Friend close at hand!

First stop was the giant tank full of local fish. As far as Damien was concerned, this could have been the only stop – he LOVED the fish and didn’t take his eyes of them for a good five minutes straight.

Absolutely mesmerized

Quick family picture... yep, still mesmerized

Turtle Bay has two rooms for rotating exhibits. Today the first held an exhibit on fishing, which is definitely a local pastime. Dan and Kassi caught some magnetic fish from a pond…

Love the backdrop - it's almost like you're really fishing!!

…while Damien caught a fish that was bigger than him.

It just jumped right into the stroller!

Meanwhile, Kaeli was getting mauled by a vicious creature.

Toothy!

Kassi and Dan learned to cast, which was pretty cool, until they almost hit me in the face.

Action shot! (I sure do like my exclamation points...)

The next exhibit we hit up was an old favorite – an interactive Pack Your Saddlebags for a Week on the Trail. Damien brought potatoes and barley…

He packed his stroller instead

…while Dan supplied the whiskey.

Sadly, the bottles were glued to the shelf

With only minutes to go before closing, we entered the second rotating exhibit – the art of Dr. Seuss! We’re all huge Seuss fans here and will definitely go back to look at everything when we have more time. Until then, Damien reminds us that a person’s a person, no matter how small:

Damien and Horton

With the place closing we took a quick tour of the gift shop (soo many cute Dr. Seuss things! for babies too! Maybe I’ll buy something next time…) and walked to the beginning of a nearby trail, where my parents were meeting us with All the Dogs Ever (their two dogs, plus Kaeli’s, plus ours.)

We did a short but pretty mile. The dogs liked walking down by the river, while Damien liked staring at the pretty sun filtering through the trees.

And then we walked some dumb pubbies into the sunset. The end!

We did pretty good for out half hour time limit, but we only saw half the park – we’ll be back soon to show Damien the rest!

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