Tide Pools

Kate loves to read this blog so it is she that I write to next. I really am bad about writing in my journal so this has to count, okay Kate?! I have to post about the tidepools we saw in Oregon because they were so awesome and that was your favorite part. On the way down to the beach and the pools, you see signs everywhere that say not to walk on the mussel beds. My sister Shelley and I had no idea what they looked like, but figured we would figure it out. Looking out on the pools it looked like there were large dark rocks everywhere. It wasn't until we got up close that we realized the rocks were COVERED in mussels. I don't know if you can tell from the pictures or not, but it was really neat. Behind Kate, are some of the mussels. All of the spots that look like little dark rocks are actually mussels. Another great shot of them is the picture below with one of the orange starfish.

Scattered all over were starfish. I have never seen one in "real" life and obviously not this many. At one point we had to be careful where we walked, there were so many. The colors were awesome too. We saw orange and a red/maroon color.
We also saw a ton of sea anemones. All of the bright green spiky plant looking things are anemones. Don't you love my technical terms?

Kate also found a number of crabs. If you use your superpowers and look REALLY hard you'll see a red crab that we caught moving under water. Also, under the rocks everywhere you could find crabs and hermit crabs in their shells. It was wacky thinking that under you were millions of crabs. Plus don't you just love how the beautiful the rocks are? They were so perfectly smooth. I wanted to pocket some. Too bad we weren't allowed.