A few of the residents of Six Flags Marine World, an alligator family. “Where did that lawn-mower man go?”. Hmmmmm, I wonder....

Also at the seal show was this cute little fella, a different type of seal only about half the size of the other one in the previous photo.

Across from the alligator enclosure is this ride that Rod went on called Boomerang. On the left of the photo you can see the start and then the mid point of the ride, you first go around it forwards and then backwards. Bravely, Rod attempted this straight after lunch... no mishaps but he says his eyes were closed for the backward half of the ride!! ;-)

This photo gives a good perspective of some other rides on the park, there are 4 roller-coaster rides in the pic. Picking them out is an exercise best left to the viewer, for the crazy/inquisitive/dedicated person, a full size photo is available for only 39.99. But wait there's more...! Just kidding.

One of the rides that cost a bit extra ($5) was the Elephant ride. Tim and his family went on it, at the beginning you can choose to get wet with the elephant. Most people that went for 'wet' thought is was a great lark especially on an extremely hot day. A pain in the butt if you didn't come along with a change of clothes though!

The dolphin show was the last one we saw, after about 5 hours wandering about in the sun. It was good, this was one of the tricks the dolphins do, amongst lots of others.

On the way to the marine park, we crossed this massive bridge on Highway 80. It has a $2 toll. By the looks of it, a good share investment would be a steel company...

Four lanes wide on each side of the bridge. Now where did I put those steel company shares....?!

Boss Paul's cabin in the woods, Bear Valley not too far from Lake Tahoe.

A view of the woods surrounding the cabin.

On our travels over the weekend we passed by this beautiful lake, Lake Alpine, at about 6000 feet. Lots of trees and boulders but also had some little sandy beaches. Quite a popular spot for camping and fishing.

Another view of Lake Alpine, where we climbed one of the bigger boulders to see the lake.

Our destination for the day was actually Lake Tahoe. This lake is huge and spans the borders of California and Nevada. We had a nice picnic lunch at Emerald Bay on the west side of the lake. Similar scenery to other parts of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, this photo shows the scale of the nearby mountainside.

In the middle of Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe, there is an island. Spot the castle if you can...!

Here is a paddleboat that cruises the lake. We didn't have the time to go for a cruise, maybe next time if we get back to Lake Tahoe.

We also met some of the locals at Emerald Bay, namely a Chipmunk (in this case, better known as the “mmm-those-toes-look-good”chipmunk). A more classic locals shot is the next photo...

This is what one really looks like (too cute!!).

In the area around the town of Tracy there are wind turbines for power generation. Most of them are of the propeller shape but these intrigued us, they are nicknamed egg-beaters and revolve around the central pole. When you see massed wind turbines they really don't look that bad!

We decided to drive south of San Jose to Santa Cruz and turned off to visit the Roaring Camp historic railroad museum. Here is one of the steam trains in action:

At Roaring Camp they also have a working Linotype machine from the 19th century. It has 60,000 parts of which 15,000 move! Probably has broken down less than most computers....!