martinzoo

On Thursday, while in Maryland, we went dog sledding with Maryland Sled Dog Adventures, LLC. We braved 20 degree weather with wind chills of 11 degrees. But, honestly, this is not your everyday adventure. So, we were totally up for it. We’ve been excitedly anticipating this trip for months, and we were not disappointed.

GB and all the kids greet the dogs

GB gets some love from Sobo and Okemo

From the left, our team, Okemo (Siberian Husky), Sobo (Siberian Husky with one beautiful blue eye, and one gorgeous amber eye), Zoe (Alaskan Husky and lead dog), and T-bone (Siberian Husky - Sheltie mix). All were rescue dogs who became part of Catherine and Eric’s family.

Eric demonstrates a dog harness.

Check out that rapt attention!

GB demonstrates attaching a belly clip.

In our demonstration, these were our ‘lead dogs.’

GB is a passenger on the rig. When there is no snow they use this rig, which weighs about 150 lbs. The sled would only weigh about 20 lbs.

GB is all set with his musher.

Okemo clearly thinks it is time to harness up and get running.

This is the ride that each child got to take. Catherine and Eric set up a trail using the names of checkpoints in the Iditarod race. And each child was responsible for carrying the diphtheria serum to Nome, Alaska.

After all the kids had ridden, it was time for the dogs to eat. They burn a lot of calories when they run 14 kids between 1/2 mile checkpoints.

GB got to feed Sobo; thrill upon thrills!

I can’t thank Catherine and Eric, and Maureen who arranged the trip, enough. This was an experience that GB will remember for the rest of his life! And I’m so happy that our principal (Dh) got to come with us. It truly was a wonderful family adventure.

While at the Aquarium, we got to see the Frogs: A Chorus of Colors exhibit. This was GB’s favorite exhibit.

All the kids liked watching the frog video. You can see some of the videos here.

It’s hard to get nice pictures through glass.

This is a Blue Poison Dart frog. This beautiful little guy wasn’t even discovered until 1968!

Want to know a surprise? The most poisonous creature in the world is not a snake or a spider. It’s a frog. The Golden Dart Frog (Phyllobates terribilis) contains about one milligram of poison, which is enough to kill 10,000 mice, and perhaps enough to kill 10 to 20 humans if the poison reaches their bloodstreams.

Frogs are very beneficial to us. Besides being very important in the food chain, frogs help farmers by eating billions of insects every year, and protecting valuable crops. Frog skin is coated with a protective toxin that keeps predators away and keeps bacteria and fungus from growing on their moist skin. Surprisingly, some of these toxins can be found in our own nervous and muscular systems.

Scientists are studying how frog toxins can be used to treat heart problems, viruses, cancers, depression, strokes, Alzheimer’s disease, and relief from chronic pain. In fact, some frog toxins are 200 times more effective than morphine, without the addictive side-effect!

On Wednesday, our little homeschooling group left the Richmond area and ventured up to Baltimore, MD for an extraordinarily, fantastic field trip.

The trip itself was pretty fun because Grampa loaned me his super-cool GPS unit (not sure I want to give this thing back, Grampa) and it actually took us through Washington, DC on I-395 instead of around DC, on the Capital Beltway, like mapquest suggested. So we got to see the Capital, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Pentagon from the road. I-295 from Washington to Baltimore was a treasure. We had hardly any traffic and the bridges were so beautiful with their stone work. I was really glad we trusted the GPS and not mapquest. This is the way I will go from now on.

Baltimore has really changed since the last time I went. It was so clean, and well-maintained. And there were so many restaurants that it was really hard to choose where to eat. We eventually settled on the Hard Rock Cafe, because we just wanted the cool atmosphere. I loved the harbor area with the battle ships and submarine….. so cool!

Everybody met at the National Aquarium.

These photos were in the tropical rain forest on top of the Aquarium. Talk about a serene place to sit and chill. It was warm, moist, not too bright, and the sounds of the birds, monkeys and critters was sooo peaceful. If GB hadn’t been so hot in there, I could’ve stayed a good, long while.

This was one of the elusive tamarind monkeys, spotted thanks to dh, who really wanted to see them before he left.

Can you see the pink cheeks on GB? It figures…. I’m comfortable, so he’s hot.

These were sand sharks in the shark exhibit

These were shark-humanoids in the shark exhibit….LOL!

GB is in front of the dolphin aquarium, where we got to see a fantastic dolphin show. We sat in the ’splash zone’ because GB was hoping to be splashed. I was not. So I was very happy that the only people drenched were in the front two rows….. we were in the fourth row.

Dolphins, and all marine mammals, are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act. This law makes it illegal to feed, touch, harass, or kill marine mammals. It also makes it illegal to buy, sell, import, or export products made from marine mammals. Sadly, humans pose the biggest threat to dolphins. Our trash( especially plastics) ends up in the ocean where marine mammals often ingest it or get tangled up in it. About 90% of all marine mammal strandings are due to humans. By following simple suggestions, people could make the oceans much safer for dolphins.

• Help by throwing trash away properly, and recycling whenever possible.

• Participating in local beach clean-ups.

• Support sustainable seafood practices like “dolphin safe” tuna.

One of the coolest things I learned about, was that a baby dolphin was born at the aquarium in September, the day after my birthday. And female dolphins have this really cool ability to start lactating whenever they are around a baby dolphin (calf). So even though the calf was born to one mama dolphin, he actually has THREE mamas feeding him. Lucky little guy, huh? The staff at the aquarium is providing data to scientists so that they can study this interesting aspect of dolphins.

Today we are in Baltimore. We are having a great trip with our fellow homeschoolers to visit the National Aquarium. And tomorrow we are going dog sledding. I’ll post on these later. But I wanted to show you a cute picture of GB working on his curriculum in the car. During our three hour trip, he got nine lessons, one quiz and one test done.