The REAL Dolphin Tale.....Winter....Happy Birthday Mom...Feb 2, 2015

When you live in south Florida you get company in winter, which is part of the fun....every year my Mom comes for about 2 weeks. This year her visit happened to be across her birthday...so I took the day off work and we all went up to the Clearwater Aquarium. We'd all seen the popular movie, Dolphin Tale (1 and 2)...and this is where Winter lives. We got a slow start so we didn't get there until around 1p and we knew we'd have to hurry to get in most of it by closing time of 6p.  This Aquarium is a Rescue/Rehab/Release facility, so you don't see "shows"...but you might get lucky enough to see a trainer working with them. They are a non-profit so they need all the donations they can get.

This was my first glimpse of Winter....

Winter and her buddy ..Hope....the trainer did a great job with them.

The "Winter Walk" told her story....

Here's a short clip of her getting some physical therapy and getting her prosthetic put on and then swimming with it for exercise.

Winter with her prosthetic tale....was amazing to watch her swim with and without it.

When Winter was first rescued she was very young and small, as she has grown they've had to change her prosthetic...this is one of her old ones...she's had over 20 now. 

We also learned that she never really rejected a tale...that was "movie action".

This is one she'd outgrown.

As cool as it was to watch Winter and Hope there were other animals there too.

These pelicans were a hoot...this is Ricky and Lucy and together they shared the role of Rufus in the movie. They each played Rufus at different times...

These turtles were pretty cool too...one of them had a "toy" made out of plastic...I'm sure was for exercise

There was a large searay tank outside and a turtle tank outside....but then it was time to go downstairs so you could see into the tanks we'd been looking down on.

Here's inside Winter and Hope's tank

Inside the turtle tank...you can't tell but these turtles are missing flippers.....but they are doing great

Mom's checking it out.....see the sharks...they were neat.

Then it was time for Mom to feed the rays....it was her birthday...she was instructed to hold the fish upright between 2 fingers..they come by and suck it up...she said she barely felt them come by..that was waaaay cool.

Now we needed to go see the educational room....

This is the under side of a turtle and is how they can tell how old it is...

These small aquariums had some neat creatures in them...

See all the red "stuff" to the right of the fish....that's 1000's of eggs....

This guy was kinda creepy...

Look...he has an actual face....too cute.

We'd had a great day at the aquarium....was time for dinner and to head home.

On the way out we got a pic of this movie prop. This is the boat that Hazel and her Dad and Grandad lived on. There was a whole bldg full of movie props and sets but we never got over there...something for next time.

We took Mom to Crabby Bill's for dinner....I think she was happy...another seafood dinner.

I'd actually made Mom's birthday cake a few days early so we'd have the whole weekend to enjoy it...she started eating it right out of the oven....I guess it was good.

Hope you had a good birthday Mom...we sure enjoyed it, glad you were here to celebrate.