“The dolphins have whiskers at birth, but most species lose them as they grow,” Frank told us.
Bob piped up, “That means they never have to shave.”
I laughed. It was not only funny, but I’d been thinking a similar thing: no hair meant that Dolly didn’t have to shave her legs in the morning. Whoops, duh, no legs.
When I started giggling over that, I had to sit down on the bench to get myself under control. Timothy took advantage of my moment of bench sitting to go up and touch the dolphin himself. I think the dolphin liked him best. She let out a squeak the moment she slid back into the water, then did a watery moonwalk, just for Timothy. Obviously, Timothy had charisma not just for human females, but for dolphin ones as well!
Up until that moment, I hadn’t been sure that the dolphin liked us touching her. Frank told us that they were most sensitive on their snout, but their teeth were too sharp for me to reach out and touch one there. But, after Timothy rated such a tribute, I supposed that answered my question. It depended on who was doing the touching.
We scurried off to see the beluga whales and the penguins. The penguins were adorable but smelly. But I absolutely loved the beluga whales. There were three of them: Allua, Klondike, and Oliver. They all looked the same to me, like triplets. But I guess their keepers could tell them apart.
I asked Frank about seeing a manatee because I’d once read that Sea World had some, but Frank informed me that the manatees had been sent back to Florida. No more sea cows at Sea World.
“We’ll just have to fly to Florida to see one then,” Timothy whispered in my ear, punctuating that with a gentle kiss.
What a wild thought. I smiled at him, drugged by his nearness, but I was still conscious enough to shake my head. Stuff like that just wasn’t part of my life. A trip to Florida just to see a manatee? I laughed, a bit nervously because of his wild proposal. I could tell he meant it.
We were all tired by that time of the day. I know we journeyed about on a cart, but there was still a lot of walking involved (and petting of strange creatures.) We were ready to say goodbye. There were a bunch of rides we could have gone on and more entertaining shows, but we said thank you to Frank and watched him drive off to the place where carts spent their night.
As a finale, we decided to visit the ice cream parlor near the exit to wait for our limo driver to return to our drop off/pick up place. Of course, we ordered something. (We felt obligated. Ha ha.) Besides, the day was warm, our clothes were dry from the water ride and the animal splashes, and ice cream sounded ideal.