Since we were so near Corpus Christi (for Texas anyway) and since the kids, especially Wesley, love aquariums, we decided to stop at the Texas State Aquarium on our way back to Austin from Port Aransas. From the website, we got the impression that the aquarium was a bit larger and dare I say nicer than it actually was, but it was plenty big enough for us to fill a few hours before getting back in the car. I wouldn’t make a special trip from Austin just to go to the aquarium, but it was worth stopping by since we were in the area.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Before we got to the aquarium, we took a small ferry across the entry to Corpus Christi Bay. The ferries held about 20 cars each and made the crossing in about 3 minutes. During the crossing we saw some more Dolphins.  As you can see from this image from Google Maps, the ferries are pretty maneuverable (compared to the much larger Washington State ferries) and they’ll just go around obstacles.

In our case the ferry waited a bit and then zipped around a large oil tanker, the Eagle Augusta. It took us about an hour to get the aquarium by car. An hour after we got there we saw it go by us while we were watching the dolphin show at the aquarium.

The aquarium has three dolphins and they put on a pretty good show for about 15 minutes.  Jillian was more interested in climbing up and down the stairs, but Wesley got into it.

During and after lunch Wesley really got into the touch tank. They had a few kinds of ray, which by getting his sleeves really wet, Wesley could get a quick touch.  Too bad the water stank so much.

While there were a few nice exhibits (a couple were closed for repairs), the best part really is the dolphins. We spent a lot of time (more than the kids cared for) watching them under water. We thought they were swimming back and forth looking at us. Turns out the their side of the glass is mirrored. Probably a lesson in that for us somewhere.  On the upside, the aquarium wasn’t busy so we had the whole room to ourselves.

Jillian was still in the midst of being sick and was pretty warn out. Even though we were only at the aquarium a few hours she had had enough. J broke down and we decided it was time to go.

We had another four or so more hours to go in the car. We stopped for dinner at a kind of creepy Mexican restaurant (the food was okay, but not great) and had a very long drive home. It was a very long drive home. A very, very long drive home. But we made it and we’ll never go back, so it is all okay.

 

The trip started out great. The kids were fabulous on the flight into LAX which was thankfully nonstop.  When we got to the rental car place things took a  turn for the worse.  I quickly realized that I didn’t have my wallet.  Which was in my backpack with my laptop and cell phone.  I didn’t leave them on the shuttle bus, I left them in the overhead compartment.  With all the hustle of getting us off the plane, not losing any kids, and dragging a car seat I clean forgot it.  I called Southwest who had already turned the plane around.  After several hours on the phone I got them to hold my backpack in Oakland.  I dropped Amber and the kids off at the hotel and drove nonstop from Ventura to Oakland.  I am here to tell you that you can drive 85 mph the entire 371 miles of this trip and not get pulled over.  I drove so quickly because the baggage place closed at 10p.  When I left the GPS was telling me I would arrive at 10:03pm.  I arrived at 9:34p, got my stuff, turned around and headed back to Ventura much more slowly.  I slept for a couple hours someplace in the middle and made it back to the hotel by 6:30a.

Later that day we had the wedding rehearsal.  I always kind of wondered why they do a rehearsal, but now I know.  Many plans were changed (or made for the first time) during the rehearsal.  By the end they pretty much had it worked out.  The location was nice and the weather was fabulous.  70F for a high temperature. That is cooler than our usual night time lows.  The wedding went off without a hitch.  People did what they were supposed to do.  Wesley carried the rings and only got a little lost on his walk down the isle.  Congratulations to Ashley and Greg!

The rest of the trip was ours.  We had a few plans, but left lots of downtime too.  The kids had plans of their own.  Mostly not sleeping for more than 60 minutes at a time all night long.  We were wiped out and wishing we could go home by the second or third night.  But, being too cheap to pay the $300 fee to change our flight we persevered.  We spent time visiting the places Amber remembered as a kid.  We played at a couple of parks she used to play at, ate at a few restaurants she used to eat at and visited with a few friends and family.  It was really nice getting to see everything that she remembered from when she lived there as a kid.

Our two big planned trips were to the Santa Barbara Zoo and the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.  Both were fabulous.  The zoo trip was great.  The average time at the zoo is about 2.5 hours. We spent about five.  We fed giraffes, rode the train, slid down the “ant hill” a couple hundred times, and visited the penguins and snakes on at least three occasions.  It was a great trip and the kids had a blast.

The aquarium was also excellent.  It is only ten years old and the exhibits are really nice.  We spent a lot of time at the touch tanks where we touched a couple of different kinds of sharks and rays.  Wesley was in love with the touch tanks.  We spent most of our visit there.  Jillian liked any of the tanks that went floor to ceiling.  She was enthralled with the fish swimming right up to her.  Of course we saw a few hundred “Nemos” which made Wesley happy.  We also visited their Lorikeet exhibit and fed the little birds some nectar.  The kids were a little apprehensive, but Wesley did eventually touch one of them.

All in all a great trip.  The flight home was a nightmare and we left our umbrella stroller on the shuttle bus (I guess we were destined to lose something), but we made it all in one piece.  We spent the whole day (and most of the weekend) recuperating and uploading pictures.  Almost 800 in all.  There is lots more to tell and of course if it were up to me I’d make you look at every last picture of my kids, but I’ll stop now before I bore you too much.

Pictures from our trip:

• All pictures
• Wedding pictures
• Rehearsal pictures
• Zoo Pictures
• Aquarium Pictures

Note:  You’ll see more pictures if you are logged into Flickr and marked as a “Friend” or “Family” contact of ours in Flickr.  You’ll see many fewer photos if you aren’t, which may be a good thing depending on how many pictures you can handle.