A date with dolphins in the Florida Keys

When I was a kid I loved to watch the 1964 show Flipper in syndication. It is the one and only mental picture I have of the Florida Keys. So, when it came to planning our trip to the Florida Keys I wanted to make sure the boys had an up close with marine life experience, especially an opportunity to meet dolphins.

While swimming with the dolphins is romantic, and there are plenty of options in the Keys, it is also pricey at $100 or more per person for an encounter. With early swimmers, scuba and snorkeling are also out of the question. Other activities for small kids can also be at a shortage in the Keys -- other than beaches and swimming pools. And to be honest we had that in Hollywood, Fla.

Don't get me wrong. The Florida Keys are lovely, and well worth a visit. Yet may be more geared toward grown-ups -- snorkeling, followed by fruity cocktails, fresh fish and a live band ... fun.

I'm so glad that we discovered Theater of the Sea in Islamorada. I found it on Yelp (searching for "kid friendly activities" in the Florida Keys).  To be honest, other than glass bottom boats, snorkeling and scuba trips it was the only thing that came up. At first I was concerned by its 3.5 star rating. But the negative Nancys had issues with it being geared toward small children -- Hooray for us!

I actually think that they were wrong. It is not geared toward small children. But it is a throw-back, a nostalgic nod to a simpler time when little boys named Sandy and Bud could live on a marine refuge in Southern Florida.

Founded in 1942, Theater of the Sea is the second oldest marine wildlife show in the North America.  It does promote the "swimming with the dolphin experience." But I'd suggest bypassing the "programs" (what they call the swimming with the dolphin, sting ray or sea lion) line, and just buy tickets to the shows. They are so worth it. We got there early at 10 am with the intention to sit up front for each show -- which we did.

We started with the parrot show, followed by the dolphin show and concluding with the sea lion show. The parrot show, was probably the least exciting. Yet, I also think it was Xander's favorite. He loved the parrot tricks and he got to hold a parrot, and he still talks about that.
 
Jonathan and my mother in law headed to the dolphin show to secure seats upfront while the boys and I waited in line to hold a parrot. The dolphin show was a blast, and Xander got picked for the audience participation part. He got to pet a dolphin... which is pretty awesome.

Next was the sea lion show, which was really cute. There is something amazing about watching a sea lion balance a ball on its nose. We also sat up front for this show, and Caleb got chosen to play sea lion ring toss.

After we made the rounds of the shows, we went on a nature walk, took the short bottomless boat ride (where we got a short dolphin show in the center of the boat). And then headed to the beach, where you can feed large tropical blue fish. All in all we spent five hours at Theater of the Sea, and we had an amazing time. Seriously if you are looking for something fun to do with small children in the Florida Keys, Theater of the Sea is it.

RIP Sweet Border Collie

Yesterday we put down our beloved border collie Geddy. Her kidneys had failed and she had stopped eating. As much as I wanted her to die at home, the vet told us that she was in a lot of pain, felt so nauseous she couldn't eat anymore and that bringing her home would be more for us than for her.

Geddy came into our life nearly 15 years ago. She was six months old at the time, and as is the case with many rambunctious, high energy border collies we were her fifth home. Her mother walked into the street when she was five weeks old and was hit and killed by a car. Shortly afterword she left her first home to live with the breeder's son's girlfriend in an apartment with a makeshift yard (a kid's swimming pool filled with dirt). When Geddy became too much for the girlfriend, she dropped her off with the breeder's son, now her ex-boyfriend. Geddy spent the next couple of months in a pen with her litter mate. Finally, the breeder's son returned her to his parent's house where we adopted her.

All of the puppy trauma made for a submissive little dog. She suffered from such great separation anxiety that she used to fill our bedroom with mother nature -- wood chips, leaves, dirt. She destroyed our shoes, baseball caps, ripped apart a couch -- she was a little terror. Yet we had to rebuild her confidence with encouragement -- which was pretty hard to do when you are trying to reassemble your couch and hide the foam before company arrives. But each day she became a better dog.

When she was 18 months old we rescued a golden retriever named Barney as a companion for Geddy and some much needed adult dog supervision. The two dogs were best friends until Barney's death four years later (at age 14 of kidney failure).

In her prime she was an amazing athlete. A natural frisbee dog. She would lay down in an open field, and from a crouch position, run, jump up in the air, catch a frisbee and then leave it at our feet. Impressive.

She was our constant companion. We took her everywhere with us, to Burning Man, Santa Barbara, on camping trips, hiking, the beach... When we lived in the city she was in a play group with other herding dogs. She was a very happy dog.

But when we had kids her life quickly changed. We left San Francisco for San Jose and a big yard. Geddy was displaced by the boys. All of the time we once spent with Geddy we now committed to our boys. She adapted. She became an elder statesdog. She tolerated  the boys, she kept them in order, herded them, and sometimes corrected them ... And she also left them alone, and pursued other interests, like barking at the mailman and chasing squirrels. Her new favorite place to sleep was under Xander's crib, and then later under his bed. And I think in her own way, she loved the boys and has been very content these last seven years.

We are so sad to say good-bye to Geddy. She was our baby girl. She taught us patience and optimism -- to see her for her potential, and not her puppy trauma. She was loud and rambunctious, smart and sweet. We love you Geddy girl. Rest in peace little border collie.

Alligator Wrangling in the Everglades

One of my favorite books when I was a kid was the Great Escape or the Sewer Story. It was about Silas the alligator, taken as a baby to New York from the Everglades by a vacationing family, who eventually flushed him down the toilet when he got too big. He ended up in the New York sewer with other alligators that staged a great escape back to the Everglades. The book is alas, out of print.

So, on this trip to Florida when we decided we were going to visit the Everglades, I wanted to see alligators. But, Caleb and Xander were adamant that there was to be no alligator wrestling. Instead we headed out on a alligator wrangling adventure.

After reviewing options on Yelp, we opted for the Everglades Safari Tours for our alligator seeking air boat ride and wild life show. I was most impressed that they made a point to tell us that there was no alligator wrestling.

It was an amazing trip. The 45 minute ride through the Everglades was fun. Strangely enough I didn't really know what the Everglades were before the trip. I thought they were a swamp. But our tour operator corrected us that the Everglades are not a swamp, but in fact  a slow moving river of rainwater running through high grasses. But seriously, what really is the difference?

During the ride we saw plenty of alligators, birds, haddocks and mangroves. After the air boat ride the adventure really began. The wildlife show was fun, seeing a bunch of large sleepy alligators responding to their names, as a brave trainer presented in the alligator cage.

Afterward we walked around the park. On one side were captive alligators behind a fence, and on the other side was sun bathing "wild" alligators. As we posed for pictures in front the fantastic "wild" reptilians, I kept thinking of the family photos before tragedy strikes. As people hoist their child in front of a lion, or bear or ... alligator for that great photo. I kept the boys on the sidewalk, and stayed a reasonably safe distance away. But the wild ones did have significantly more appeal from a photo perspective.

For three dollars each, the boys were also able to hold a baby alligator too. For Caleb and Xander this was one of the highlights of our Florida trip. The baby alligator was little and cute. Cute enough to take back to San Jose, but what we do with him when he got too big?