Monday, July 31, 2017

Ranger Talks

When we were in Shenandoah, our buddies came to visit us.  After that visit, they told us to let them know if we were going anywhere interesting for the summer.  We mentioned Acadia, and boom, they decided to come out.  So exciting!  Their visit doesn't completely cover our stay in Acadia, we had a couple days before their arrival.  The first day we went international because they don't have their passports and couldn't do that with us.  The second day, we took in a couple ranger talks.  I stayed back with the older kiddos for the first one.  Bill and the younger guys went and heard a talk about birds.  The ranger was impressed with their knowledge and identification skills, and since they were the only ones who showed up, got to have some personalized attention.        
The second talk we all headed out to hear.  It was the touch tank at the Schoodic Education and Research Center.  This one was truly cool.  She spoke on a variety of ocean critters, and then passed them around to hold.  Very popular talk.  She started with periwinkles, which are fairly small.  She kicked it up a bit with a sea urchin, grossed us all out with a moon snail, let the kiddos touch (while she held) a sea star, and then brought out the star--a Maine lobster (banded, of course).  Some of the things were only for touching, but most things got passed around for holding.  The moon snail released a LOT of water while the last kiddo was holding it, and the ranger assured us it was only water.  I love being in national parks.  There's just a vibe in the parks that I enjoy.  We've been away from national parks for so long, it's truly exciting to be back in one.  And from here on out, we're only visiting NPS sites when we stop.  It's been a long year+, we're almost done, but we still have many NPS sites on our list.  

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