So after our wonderful tour of Westmont, we had a nice lunch then took a scenic route through town. This worked great as if gave the kids, especially Boopy a chance to take a quick nap. We ended our driving tour of the hills of Santa Barbara in town just off the beach at the zoo. I was SO impressed by the Santa Barbara Zoo. You wouldn't even have known it was there if not for the road signs. The zoo was by far one of the best bargains of the trip, considering we got in free with our Fresno zoo pass (thanks again Uncle Five, Aunt Kathie & Jakub!!!). It's beautiful and very well maintained. The arrangement of animals keeps you moving throughout the zoo with something to see almost every where you turn.
They even had a train that goes throughout the zoo that we tried to ride but it had some maintenance issues. Big Boy settled for the stationary train ride instead.
We were told by a zoo employee that they had just put in this play area for kids in the last week. It was fabulous! Big Boy especially liked the spider web climbing. There were play and picnic areas all throughout the zoo. Such an inviting and fun place!
The kids gave rolling down the hill a try.
After the zoo, we went into town to the open courtyard mall, ate dinner and called it a night. We had a very full day and wore out the kids wonderfully! Sunday morning found us leisurely hanging around and then venturing to the beach to walk around. We also spent time at the Sea Center which had terrific exhibits for the kids to touch sea life and get up close to see things like jelly fish and octopus. Big Boy even got to touch a small shark. Surprisingly Boopy acted a bit afraid, although she got kind of daring when a crab got loose and it was crawling on the ground to her. Had Aunt Kat not picked up her, I'm not so sure she wouldn't have gotten super close to it! The escaped crab certainly added a bit of excitement to our sea center adventure!
Santa Barbara coast and the Sea Center at the end of the pier.
Big Boy didn't want to have much to do with the water, unlike Boopy, but he did love chasing seagulls and making sand angels.
Boopy had no problems with the water, which surprisingly for March was not very cold and fun to put our toes into. She loved the rocks and shells.
While MUCH small than somewhere like Monterrey Bay Aquarium, the Sea Center did offer almost everything to be hands on and encouraged a bit more of a learning experience rather than just looking. And even though quite a bit of the "learning" was a bit over both kids heads, they still really enjoyed it.
I have a feeling that Big Boy would love to have a hermit crab of his own after getting to "play" with one.
The Sea Center even had a spot to do a puppet show and books to sit down and read!
So that wrapped up our quick weekend in Santa Barbara. Well, that is all except for the fun ride home in the late afternoon, with me alone with two small worn out creatures....but that's another story. :)
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