Now at the Monterey Bay Aquarium is an incredible sea horse exhibit. Here are some tidbits you may not know… 1.  Seahorses change colors. Thier ability to camoflage themselves is even better than a chameleon. 2. The female can lay about 200 eggs, and the father is the one who carries them until they hatch. Which, is only two to three weeks later. 3. In Asia seahorses are used as medicine (believed to...

With kids being out of school all week, a few families joined together for a picnic at Lake Solano Park. This is an area near the city of Winters that is great for first time camping. It is not far from the Sacramento area and has some nice hiking trails and playground equipment as well. There is a visitor’s center that is, likely for budget reasons, only open sporadically. I have been looking for a place...

We recently took a trip to the Nimbus Fish Hatchery in Rancho Cordova, Ca.  You can read more about our adventure there. In honor of Photo Friday I thought I would include a photo of the first time our oldest went fishing.  We were at Camp Sacramento, a family camp that my family had gone to for many years of my childhood.  A river runs through the property which offers some good fishing opportunities. ...

Did you know….  that for over a month after they hatch, salmon are still attached to their yolk  sacs and don’t leave their gravel nest? It is not until their nutrient-filled sacs are completely absorbed that they start their journey from river to ocean. There is a lot to learn at the Rancho Cordova Nimbus Fish Hatchery.  Here, actually two hatcheries next to each other, you can view both...

The Nimbus Fish Hatchery was constructed in the late 50s as a way to mitigate the impact that the Folsom-Nimbus Dam had created for the salmon and steelhead trout population in the American River.  The ladder, which guides upswimming fish to a holding pen at the hatchery, is open in November and stays open until the run is over. The hatchery harvests the eggs from the female fish, fertalizes it with “milt”...