Okay - I have no idea where this dream is coming from and what I'm supposed to take from it.

I was with friends and we must have been on a hiking trip (Somewhere I feel I have been but never have if that makes any sense)

The first cave type place we go to (I'm not sure they were as much caves as just rock formations you could get down into) but we were going along and I saw two turtles (just normal size ones) one on the back of the other tucked in the corner. I was careful to point them out but not draw attention to them as I didn't want anyone to disturb them. (Though I wondered - in my dream- if turtles could do that or if someone placed them that way...)

We decided we'd go do the lower hike - it had a name but I can't remember it - we knew it was somehow very difficult.

I had on these ridiculous shoes - think those ked type of white shoes with no tracking (simple lace up) I kept looking at them thinking they weren't going to work but figured I'd try.

We get down into this area where this hike was to take place. There was a fellow there decked out for hiking. (He wasn't talking but a narrator was telling his story - I didn't see the narrator but "heard" the story. Maybe even in my head - I'm not sure my friends that were with me were down there yet - I don't think so.

I don't remember his name but the narrator was saying "James" that might have been it had checked the conditions and was concerned there might be trouble ahead and had called and gotten all the information. He was prepared for the hike etc. (he was foreshadowing a story I didn't find out the answer to)

The area was gorgeous with the rocks and water. It was like we were looking under the water (Like you would at an aquarium though it was just outside. I could see the water was deep but because I was looking through the side of it not down into it.

Coming swimming around a large rock was a GIANT turtle. Like bigger then a car. For some reason I wasn't afraid of it but it was huge. Then I looked further and saw another GIANT water creature - Like a manatee except maybe more prehistoric looking (though it didn't look like any I had ever seen) so I can't really explain it.

for some reason they didn't seem scary they just were - and I guess somehow I might have expected them to be there.

That is when I woke up - noise in the house.

I promise I didn't watch anything odd before bed - regular sitcoms and I don't watch scary or scifi TV... (I really only like comedies) I was the oddest dream I just can't imagine what it means.

A cave (or something similar) makes me think of a descent into the unconscious and finding out more about yourself. (Maybe that's where the feeling of having been there before comes from.) Descending into a cave could also have to do with a negative feeling like depression, but I don't sense from your post that you are having a problem with depression, especially since you come upon a beautiful, watery area. Water is also associated with the unconscious, so I think this is a positive dream, involving you learning and accepting the good things about ourself.

I associate turtles with age, because they live along the time, and also the idea of something being hidden, because of the way they are covered by their shells.

Looking at the way the turtles are on top of each other could have to do with your considering your position in life. When you wonder if the turtles got their into that position themselves or someone put them that way, you could be thinking about how much of what we get in life is from our own doing and how much comes from outside forces.

The shoes are also related to this - in the dream, you think don't have the right shoes (equipment) to get you where you want to go safely. You are thinking about what others have provided for you. But you end up going anyway, depending on your own skills despite the bad shoes.

The giant turtle and prehistoric manatee-like creature sound like they represent very primitive feelings from your unconscious. Since you aren't scared, you are learning to accept these feelings. The fact that you notice that you aren't scared makes me think that you expected to be scared by them; the dream is saying that you are learning to accept parts of yourself that you wouldn't have been able to accept before.