Autumn enjoyed her first day of school today.

A long time ago, I told a story to the kids about Gentoo the penguin shortly before the aquarium received their batch of penguins, so the girls get excited when we see Gentoo, Gentoo’s mom, Gentoo’s dad, etc. there.

Maybe it’s because they’re new or because it’s cold in their enclosure, but these penguins are a lot more active than the ones at the zoo.

We went to to the aquarium today and saw the sea turtle that was brought in from Florida.

It was hit by a boat and then bitten by a shark.

The damage from the boat caused air to get in the rear of the shell of the turtle so it can’t dive down from the surface.

Weights have been placed on the turtle’s back so that it can dive, but the weights will eventually fall off as the turtle grows bigger so it will remain in captivity under the care of aquarium officials otherwise it would have little chance of survival in the wild.

About Sea Turtles

It takes decades for sea turtles to reach sexual maturity. After mating at sea, adult female sea turtles return to land to nest at night. Different species of sea turtles exhibit various levels of philopatry. In the extreme case, females return to the beach where they hatched. This can take place every two to four years in maturity. They make from one to eight nests per season.

The mature nesting female hauls herself onto the beach, nearly always at night, and finds suitable sand on which to create a nest. Using her hind flippers, she digs a circular hole 40 to 50 centimetres (16 to 20 in) deep. After the hole is dug, the female then starts filling the nest with a clutch of soft-shelled eggs one by one until she has deposited around 50 to 200 eggs, depending on the species. Some species have been reported to lay 250 eggs, such as the hawksbill. After laying, she re-fills the nest with sand, re-sculpting and smoothing the surface until it is relatively undetectable visually. The whole process takes thirty to sixty minutes. She then returns to the ocean, leaving the eggs untended.

The hatchling’s gender depends on the sand temperature. Lighter sands maintain higher temperatures, which decreases incubation time and results in more female hatchlings.

Incubation takes about two months. The eggs in one nest hatch together over a very short period of time. When ready, hatchlings tear their shells apart with their snout and dig through the sand. Again, this usually taked place at night, when predators such as seagulls cannot fly.

Once they reach the surface, they instinctively head towards the sea. If, as happens on rare occasions, hatching takes place during daylight, only a very small proportion of each hatch (usually 0.01%) succeed, because local opportunist predators, such as the common seagull, gorge on the new turtles. Thus there is an obvious evolutionary drive to hatch at night, when survival rates on the beach are much higher. Source: Sea turtle. (2010, August 21). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 01:33, August 26, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sea_turtle&oldid=380188521

It is worth noting that in legend Captain Jack Sparrow roped a couple of sea turtles to escape from a deserted island.

We enjoyed the time outside and also some of the attractions at Park City. The last time I was at Park City and rode the Alpine Slide must have been about 20 years ago.

Now they have something called the Alpine Coaster which was crazy! More on that further down…

Below are a couple views from where we stayed at the Deer Valley Club.

We stayed on the 7th floor, but the room numbers on the floor started with 6. Weird. There were only 10-15 rooms in the place if I remember right.

The girls slept on the floor. Oh, they look happy now, but it wasn’t all that easy to get them to go to sleep.

Below, Angie is by her flowers. There wasn’t a vase for flowers so a plastic water pitcher had to do.

At Park City, we had lots of fun the girls ate it up and wanted to do just about everything there.

In the picture below, we’re riding up the mountian on a huge ski lift that can fit 6 people. To the left, you can see the Alpine Slide, and to the right you can see a clearing where it looks like a pipe is going up the mountain. That’s the Alpine Coaster.

The Alpine Coaster is like the Alpine Slide except for the cart you are in is connected to a track (think the Matterhorn ride at Disneyland).

You strap into the coaster which looks similar to a little race car (without the doors and protective windows), and then it pulls you up the mountain on a cable.

Once you reach the top, the worker tells you not to break at all going down (I think they like hearing the screams).

You get going very, very fast and almost feels like the coaster could come off the track.

Megan and Autumn loved going down the Coaster. It curves and twists and bounces up and down.

Unfortunately, we forgot to bring our camera on the trip, so our pictures here are from Grandma’s camera.

It was a lot of fun. We thought the zip line (pictured below) that lots of people chicken out of would be more scary, but it was the Coaster in my book.

The zip line starts at the height of the Alpine Slide. You put you sit in a harness, but to begin, you put your feet up against the release gate so your legs are parallel to the ground about 4 1/2 feet about the platform floor. The opperator then realeases the gates which swing open and you zip down the mountain.

We saw a big guy get stuck on it towards the bottom of the line earlier in the day, and the operator said that heat from the sun can expand the line and slow you down. Humidity can change how fast you go as well.

Below Megan enjoyed going on the bouncer.

She wanted to do the activities without prodding from Mom or Dad.

Autumn enjoyed it too.

We ended the trip with a nice walk though the woods.