Pacific Coast Trip: Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara was the next stop on our journey. The kids (and their parents) had an amazing time at the Sea Center affiliated with the Natural History Museum. The online reviews were mixed, but we were hooked. We could have spent all day here! It was nice to have staff members near exhibits to explain the science to visitors.

Ainsley:

I went to the Sea Center in Santa Barbara. It was in a building right over the Pacific Ocean! I saw many sea anemone in the touch pool. When I touched one, it tried to carry my finger with its tentacles. Its tentacles are actually poisonous but our skin is resistant to it. The staff member explained that to me. I also touched a shark, a ray, and a star fish in different touch pools. I also watched a movie that I really liked! It was about a sea cow, which is related to a manatee, that was fossilized. The paleontologists were digging up the bones. I liked this video because I want to be a paleontologist when I grow up. We went into this room and it had a screen with 3 shrimps in it. Another staff member explained the shrimp to us. He showed us how to test for the salt in the ocean. There was less salt because it was a rainy day when we visited.

Second, I went to Solvang. It is a Dutch town with several windmills. I ate Aebleskievers. They were very good! We went to a mass at the Santa Inez Mission in Solvang. The Spanish Missionaries built this church in 1802. I was surprised because I’ve never been in a church that old. It was a long day. So, I was tired when I got home!

Travis:

Today I went to the Sea Center in Santa Barbara. There was all sorts of cool exhibits, for example, the touch pools. The touch pools were awesome because I got to touch sea anemones, starfish, sea cucumbers, rays, and sharks! Did you know that Swell sharks are known to swell up to look bigger than they are, hence their name? Another cool exhibit was the jellyfish exhibit because the Moon jellies were amazing. Not only did the exhibit have jellies but it also had an octopus, crab, eel, and more.

There were all different exhibits, but my favorite was the wet deck. There was a hole in the floor to look into the ocean. The person let us take a salinity sample. A salinity sample measures how much salt is in water. The sample read 28/1000 which means that there was 28 parts of salt for every 1000 parts of water. The average salinity of the ocean is 35/1000. It was lower than usual because the rainy weather diluted the salt. When we left I was sad that we had to leave but I was also happy because my brain was now larger.

I also went to a cool city called Solvang. It was a dutch town so it had a lot of windmills and dutch style buildings. We walked around town and saw a farmers market. We went in and bought some honey sticks and eggs. A man came by and asked to see dad’s 20 dollar bill. Then he poked a hole into the bill! Then he took it out and there was no hole! After that we took a picture next to a statue of a Holland shoe and bought a bunch of pastries called Aebleskivers. When we were done we went to a religious service at old Mission Santa Inez. It is super old. It was cool to spend a mass at a mission. I had a wonderful day today.