The beautiful gardens of the plantation were amazing! We saw it at the perfect time when the azaleas were in full bloom.
We then took an open-air train ride through the 500 acres of swamp land and saw native aligators 7-8 feet long! Very thankful to have seen them from afar and not stumbled upon them while walking.
The aquarium was probably my favorite! They had so many things to see and educational opportunities for the students.
We went down into their basement where they had a sea turtle hospital. All of these sea turtles had been rescued from the ocean. They either had swallowed a plastic bag and showed signs of malutrition, had boat motor injuries, or were stunned from an unusually cold water temperature a while ago. This one below named Luke Skywalker took a keen interest in our little one.
She then got to feed pieces of shrimp to the sting rays.
An unexpected highlight was seeing a bald eagle. This one was rescued from Florida with a broken wing. Although healed, it won't fly anymore. This is about half the size of most bald eagles in that state, and those are about half the size of the ones in Alaska. So this one we saw is only 25% of how large they can get!
So much fun, and I'm glad I was invited to go along. :)
