Field Trip!

I just got home from a 2 day field trip to Galveston. It was quite an ordeal to make this happen. We had to get Miguel's mom to come over and help him watch the kids. I had to take both my hand pump and electric breast pump. I had to pump milk wherever I possibly could, which involved a lot of bathroom pumping sessions. I won't lie, it was a pretty big pain in the ass, and I'm not really sure it was worth it.

But I took some pictures.

Our first stop was at a fish hatchery. Here's a redfish from the hatchery's brood stock. I like how it's peeking out of the little window.It was pretty informative. Not a bad stop. My only regret is that I didn't bring my wallet because they had a little gift shop and I wanted to get something for Chloe. Oh well.

Next stop was to the turtle barn at some University. This is supposedly the only place in the country where they raise sea turtles for research purposes only. This stop was pretty cool for about the first 1/2 hour, but it was oppressively hot, and the guy giving the tour would not shut up. He rambled on for a good 2 hours and we were all dying of heat and being bitten by ants.
Then we stopped for dinner and I had some FANTASTIC veggie enchiladas. So good.

After dinner, we took a ferry to get to our lodge. Most of my class stood at the front of the ferry keeping an eye out for dolphins. And just before we had to go back to the van, I saw a pair of dolphins come to the surface. And then one came right up next to the ship. That was the highlight of my day. No pics of that. It happened too quick.

We didn't get to our lodge until 9:00 at night thanks to Mr. Turtle guy who wouldn't shut up.

The next morning we went out on the oyster boat. It was freezing! It was crazy windy and the sun wasn't out and I was dressed for hot sunny weather.
This cool little guy with his duct tape shoes is a 90 year old biologist who taught us about oysters and ate a whole bunch of raw oysters. I tried one, but I put red sauce all over it without trying the sauce first. I don't really know what the oyster tasted like because I spit the whole thing overboard. All I could taste was the horse radish. It was awful.

After the boat trip we rushed over to the oyster processing plant only to find that all the workers were gone. So the old guy with the duct tape shoes talked for about 15 minutes, but no one could hear him because all the machinery was too loud. So then we had lunch and came back to the processing plant to the dismay of pretty much everyone since we were all ready to start the 4 hour drive home. This time, the processing plant was in full swing with a whole bunch of mexican guys in rubber boots and aprons. Oddly enough, it made me miss my mexican man. After that, we finally started the long drive home.

Ok, now I'm probably sounding like the turtle guy. I'm kind of dizzy and weird, so I better stop now.