Shamu!

In honor of Matt finishing up his classes for his MPA, we took a little weekend jaunt down to Sea World San Antonio. I haven't been since 4th grade and Matt had never been and we decided there was no better time. We picked the perfect weekend -- it ended up being 75 and sunny in mid-December and there were hardly any people there. We stayed with LisaLou and she came with us to the park. If you haven't ever been (or haven't been in a long time), you need to go. We saw three great shows (my favorite was Viva! which had beluga whales, rad whiteside dolphins and high divers). I'm amazed they can train animals to do these things! It was actually really cool to see the bond between the trainers and the animals. After the sea lion caper, Lisa got us "backstage" because she knows one of the trainers. We got to see how they take care of the performers and got to meet Ileak, the 3000-pound walrus. That's one big animal. We talked to the trainers about the incident at Sea World San Diego and they said the only reason the killer whale let the trainer off the bottom of the pool was because she realized he was her friend. It was really interesting to hear how they reinforce the animals and the psychology behind everything they do. We even got to feed the bottlenose dolphins and pet them when they came over to us! Yes, I'm 27 years old, but I gleefully acted about a third of my age! Viva Sea World!

P.S. You can see more pics here, if you dare