It was hard to leave Hemet. It is funny how you can only know someone in for family for a very short time and yet be sad to part so quickly. We hope that they find their way to our neck of the woods some time. The next stop was a Bed and Breakfast, Sea Breeze B&b, in Encinitas. It was a very nice, homey place with hostess named Kirsten, a cat named Missy and a little girl who had just had her fourth birthday, named Whisper. The B&B was only three short blocks from the beach. Breakfast was a serve yourself deal and the cost was very affordable. She even let me use her washing machine and lent us beach towels. I would highly recommend looking her up if you need to stay anywhere near her end of California. Anyhow, we dropped off our gear, taped up Ethan's cast and sped off to the beach. He was quite a hit with the surfers. One group of teens who were stopped at a light leaned out and said, "Hey little man, is that a cast? That is so totally awesome - I wish I could sign it!" He also got some strange looks at the beach. I am not sure what people thought was under all that duct tape. I am just thankful that we figured out a good system. We found that if you put a towel towards top opening and another around his hand, then covered that with a trash compactor bag and covered that with a few layers of duct tape, that he could still enjoy the beach. There was no way a little fractured wrist and bent bone was going to keep that boy out of the water. Ellie entered the water with glee. Thankfully, the water was warm and inviting. They played until it began to get too dark to see well. Then they collected kelp and made a bump. They had the idea that they could use it to make a floating island that they could perch upon. This did not really work, but it was fun.
We had intended to go to Legoland the next day, but decided to put it off until Monday, a wise suggestion on Kirsten's part. It was much less crowded then it might have been. Instead, we visited Quail Gardens. We love gardens and this one sported a bamboo garden, along with subtropical plants. It was beautiful and diverse. The kids pretended that they were in certain movies in the different sections. In the bamboo forest they were in a Chinese movie we've seen, jumping from tree to tree in their imagination. In the Australian forest they pretended that they were Indiana Jones and his Sidekick. I hummed the music and they skulked through the undergrowth. It was much more fun going this way, than the traditional adult way. I am thankful that we have kids to remind us how to have fun.
Next up was the Scripps Birch Aquarium in La Jolla. We had opted for it instead of Sea World for money reasons. It was a lot of fascinating fun! They do a great job at that location. It is not large, but the select of what to do and see was great to us lock-lander folk. It was "Shark Week" and that added even more interesting fun. We got to pet some friendly sharks, "dog fish sharks" I believe they were called. Did you know that a single shark will loose thousands of teeth over the course of its life? The teeth are modified scales and as teeth fall out, other just move up the line. We also got some great tips on tidepooling. La Jolla is a great place to tidepool. It is important to know when low tide is. During our visit the best time to go was very early in the morning. I will write about that later. As part of "Shark Week" there were PHD candidates working tables, talking sharks and sharing some of their neat samples. It was a real hit with our family.
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