Hunting Elephants

For a fun outdoor activity on August 27th, we chose to go to Dana Point to hunt for elephants on parade!  Our first stop was Doheny Beach.  Emily thought she could beat Mama in a foot race to the elephants - not likely!

The elephant parade is an exhibition of uniquely painted statues to raise money for Asian elephants - on the verge of extinction.

Each elephant has an explanation of the artist's vision with his or her design and how it relates to the Asian elephant.

But there were just 4 elephants remaining at Doheny (though the whole collection had been there originally), so we took a break on a bench...

and then headed for the car.  Everett wasn't so happy about it.

But, we didn't go very far before we parked in the harbor and located a few more elephants.

This is Mosha.  She was the inspiration for the Elephant Parade back in 2006.

(From the Dana Point website: After stepping on an abandoned land mine, Mosha was fit with the world¹s first-ever prosthesis for a baby elephant. Her powerful strides inspired father and son duo, Mike and Marc Spits, to create Elephant Parade®in 2006. As a socially-conscious business enterprise, Elephant Parade has since rapidly grown from a grassroots movement into a global crusade combining a powerful mix of corporate, celebrity and community support. Through the sale of merchandise and auction of the original art pieces, the exhibition has raised over $6 million dollars to help support the world¹s most majestic land mammals and raise global awareness of issues affecting their dramatic plight.)

But, while Mosha and Maa Lii were out at the street, there were others along the docks.

So we walked along,

and looked for fish...

before we found a couple more.

Then we found the shadiest spot we could in order to have a picnic lunch while watching the whale watching tours come in and go out. 

On our way to the car we spotted one last elephant.

It was a fun way to spend a morning!