Darn Happy

We have watched the movie "A Dolphin's Tale" many times, but it is special to us because we happened upon it by chance when we were in the hotel this summer on our East Coast vacation, looking for a movie on TV for our family movie night.

The movie is about a dolphin who gets rescued and gets a prosthetic tail, and now lives in Clearwater, FL.  When we found out that was only a couple of hours from where we'd be in Orlando we made plans to go see her in person!

 

 It was amazing.  The girls both got to touch a dolphin, and we watched how she and her friend, Panama, get trained.

 

Although seeing Winter was a big highlight there were also many other animals there, including this turtle, Titus.  We had no idea all of the harm that can come to sea life with boats around.

  

 

We got to see many props from the movie, and even meet a walking Winter! 

 Both girls were very interested in the prosthetic tail, and we were happy to learn how working to make a tail for her has led to advances in protheses for many people.

 We got to touch stingrays - they would come right to the edge of the tank and put their flippers up to get pet - it was so fun!

 We also learned what a big deal it is to watch out for sea turtle eggs on beaches in California - if we are ever on a California beach again we'll be very careful!

One more turtle - we forget this one's name, but we watched him eat lettuce from above his tank, and he kept coming over to us instead of eating his lettuce.  When we went to view from below his tank he swam down there to see us, too!

 The Clearwater Marine rescue vehicle:

 And our future animal rescuer - what a great trip to get to take, and a nice complement to all the Disney time!