Saturday, January 7, 2012

A Walk in the Woods

Yesterday was absolutely beautiful outside.  It was sunny and warm ("warm" meaning 50 degrees.  It's January, everything is relative).  We've had several decent weather days in the past few weeks and each one I try to get outside for awhile with Charlotte.  Every time I think it's going to be the last nice day for a few months, but then it gets nice again a few days later.  I'm definitely not complaining, but it's weird.

I decided to take Charlotte to the park and the nature center.  We are lucky to live in an area that has both about a mile from our house.  Charlotte loves being outdoors and she sat in her stroller, wide-eyed the entire time.  She was also excited just to hang out in the parking lot:

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We started by walking down a paved trail to the nature center.

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We walked around inside and looked at the fish, snakes, hissing coakroaches (no thanks) and turtles.  They also have a space outside with several small exhibits, so we headed out there.

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We met this fellow...

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A man who worked there decided to take the owl out of his cage so we could see him.  I learned a few things about owls that I never knew before (I really didn't know much of anything about owls before, so really everything was new).  First of all, this owl was large--he was about 18 inches tall and 8 or so inches wide.  Despite his large appearance, he only weighed about 1.5 pounds.  Owls are mostly feathers and fluff (technical terms) and their bones are hollow.  Also, they have 14 bones in their necks and humans only have 7.  Random information that will now forever be stored in my brain, probably taking over the space once occupied by remembering where I set my car keys.

Isn't he handsome?

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Here's a cute rabbit we met:

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Then we found some ducks.  Charlotte wasn't sure what to think of them...I think after the owl demonstration she was wary of any more wildlife, so we didn't spend too much time with the ducks.

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After the nature center we walked back thru the trail and over to the beach.

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I think we were the only people there and it was wonderful.  I've never been there when it was so quiet.

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This old lighthouse does double duty in the summertime as an ice cream stand.  Too bad there wasn't any today...

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I'll tentatively say that this was the last nice, warm day for awhile.  Either way, we spent it well and I can't wait to do it again.



~Stacy


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