Thar She Blows...

We were very excited when we had this first sighting of a humpback whale. These whales can grow up to 52 feet long, but as baleen whales, they only eat krill and small fish.

This was our best sighting. We did see some water spouts from the blow hole, but never saw any breaching. It was also difficult to tell how many whales we saw as we only ever saw one at a time and they can stay submerged for around 15 minutes. It was exciting and yet a bit disappointing at the same time. Despite Ashlynn wearing her lucky Orcas Rock sweatshirt, we weren’t lucky enough to spot any orcas or dolphins.

1st Time Whale Watching...

You might think that since I grew up in California, that I’d seen whales off the coast many times, but I’d actually never seen any. So I was excited to arrange our first whale watching cruise. Early on a Saturday morning, we drove down to Moss Landing, which is on Monterey Bay (south of Santa Cruz and north of Monterey). We had a surprisingly good breakfast at a dumpy little cafe, then met up with Leigh and Mike before going to the orientation for Sanctuary Whale Watching.

On our journey out of the harbor, we saw two otters and a lot of seals. Ashlynn was required to wear a life vest, but she didn't mind because it helped keep her warm.

World's Coolest Flight Simulators..

Our next stop at Ames was to see the building that houses the flight simulators. Jimmy was like a kid in a candy shop. He’d trained in a simulator while in the Navy and even managed to get me inside one for a “flight” over Coronado. First we entered a room that could have been straight out of a sci-fi movie where we saw the Vertical Motion Simulator, the world’s largest flight simulator, which can move as much as 60 feet vertically and 40 feet horizontally. Then we passed by the control room on our way to a room that houses the cabins to a whole variety of simulators; above is the tilt rotor cabin which showed Moffett Field on the screen.

The most exciting cabin to enter was definitely the space shuttle, where all shuttle pilots have trained. The girls also enjoyed standing up in the lunar lander. After lunch with Deb, we visited the Ames Exploration Center, the free museum open to the public, which was anticlimactic after our earlier tour.

World's Largest Wind Tunnel...

We felt very small while standing inside the world’s largest wind tunnel. At 80 feet by 120 feet, it is large enough to test a full-size 737 at speeds up to 120mph. Granted, we didn’t see it in action, but we were fortunate enough to have over an hour with Dr. Bill Warmbrodt, the Branch Chief of Aeromechanics since 1985 with a special interest in rotorcraft research. Needless to say, he bonded immediately with Jimmy, who just loves to meet another helicopter fan. After the wind tunnel, Bill took us over to a helicopter hangar. The girls especially enjoyed seeing the world’s largest remote controlled helicopter.

Private Tour at NASA!

We had one very exciting consequence of going to my high school reunion: getting a private tour by an old friend who is now the Director of Operations at Ames Research Center, one of NASA’s ten field installations. We were so honored that Deb set aside time to show us around. Here we are in her office in front of a photo of a replica of the Wright’s flyer in the wind tunnel.

As this center is usually closed to the public, this was indeed a very special tour. Deb drove us around in an electric car. It was great to hear her enthusiasm about the efforts at Ames to use green energy; she is especially excited about the new sustainable building that is about to open, but which we were unable to tour.

Our New Short Hairdos...

And here are the results from our big haircuts. Frankly, I’d been bugging Veronica for months to pull back her hair as it was getting quite out of control. I instantly loved her new style and think she likes it, too. I’ve only had my hair cut this short once in my life, but don’t even remember it since I was only five at the time. After seeing how short it is, I’m very relieved that I didn’t have to take off an additional two inches. As long as I don’t think about Jimmy’s Snape comment, I think I’ll be able to get used to short hair.

The First Cut is the Hardest...

Veronica has so much hair that she made two ponytails to make it easier for the hairdresser. Even so, it took a long time to cut through her thick hair. Veronica was a bit sad to see her hair go, but can imagine how thrilled someone will be with a wig from her beautiful hair. In comparison to her two horse’s manes, my hair looked like a rodent’s tail. And with my hair wet, Jimmy teased me that I looked like Snape from Harry Potter; I declined to follow his advice on including that photo here.