Coast Trip Day 4: Crescent City & Redwoods to Ashland

We had a pretty amazing day today.  We started at Ocean World, it is a quirky little aquarium that has been built into an old boat.  They have a lot of different animals to touch and resident harbor seals and sea lions.  When we were in the hull of the boat looking at the seals swimming around I started feeling not right, I got dizzy, ringing in the ears, a bit of tunnel vision, and I felt like I wasn't getting enough air.  I sat down while the guy was talking about something-who knows what and prayed that I wouldn't pass out in the hull of the boat aquarium.  We made it out of the hull and I still wasn't feeling very well so I leaned against a table while JD got to pet some Leopard Sharks, I was able to do the same after a few minutes but still felt queasy.  We got a little sea lion/seal show and then we were done at the aquarium and I was feeling better.  The only thing I can guess was I had locked by knees and cut of circulation because it was weird. 

 

After the aquarium we went to the North Coast Marine Mammal Center.  This is a place that they take sick, injured, or abandoned marine mammals for rehab.  We got to see an elephant seal, 5 baby harbor seals, and a few sea lions during feeding time.  The volunteer worker was super nice and told us a lot about the animals and why he was doing things the way he was.  We loved watching him shove fish down the baby harbor seals-they are just like little puppies only fat, wet, and floppity.  One of the seals they had was actually kidnapped by a kindergartner from the beach, they were on a field trip and he put it in his back pack.  When the parents got home they found a baby seal in their bath tub. 

We went to Jedediah Smith State Park/Redwoods National Park on our way up to Medford/Ashland. This place is amazing.  It is kind of hard to put how tall the trees are into perspective while walking amongst them until you take a minute to look through pictures and realize we looked like little ants wandering around these gigantic trees.  In Sequoia the large, massive trees are not quite as common and are spaced out a bit compared with an entire grove of varying aged trees.  We loved hiking around them and enjoyed the 'old grove' where the older bigger trees were located. 

After the Redwoods we drove up to Medford and dropped our stuff off at the hotel.  We went to eat in Ashland and walked around the town.  It is the location of Southern Oregon University and the Oregon Shakespearean Festival.  The main street is decorated all cute Shakespearean style with names like the Windsor or pubs like the Dragon.  There is also a beautiful park down town the boarders the river, we loved walking through Lithia looking at the rhododendrons. The last stop of a busy day was stopping for icecream with our friends Chris and Haylie Weston.  Haylie went through pharmacy technician training with JD and I and also graduated from Pacific University a few years ago as a pharmacist.  It was fun to see them for a bit and we are excited to see their new baby when he comes.