Walking Through An Aquarium

If there's one thing that we love to do it's going to local science things! We are a big fan of living the education instead of just looking at it in a book or on the internet. Yeah there are absolutely things to do looking things up in those ways but there is SO much to do locally and it's an amazing thing to be able to explore and understand the nature you are living around all the time. I think a lot of people forget this, or simply don't know it. I don't want to call it propaganda but maybe the success of advertising, which I know could be considered one-in-the-same. Focusing on far off destinations instead of what's right down the street from where you're at right now.

We got a membership at one of the local and smaller places near us and we love it, it's got loads of benefits and cool stuff to see. My son has seen it all that's for sure but we still make it a point to go visit the place every few months, particularly in the winter as a way to get out and do stuff instead of stay in the house. This day was no different! We went for a stroll around the building looking at all of the beautiful fish, local and some exotic, to check out the wonders of the marine life.

My wife has done this more than I, since she is the one that stays home with him most often so she is familiar but I was surprised, they had a pretty cool scavenger hunt! There were a bunch of cards that you could take and you had to find each of the various items on the cards and cross it out. I didn't realize it at the time but it was actually really fun! I was too focused on finding one or two of the items to pay more attention to it which is unfortunate but it's small things like this that places can do, that really make the difference for the kiddos! I love when there are places that exist for these small gestures to bring magic to their lives.

This makes it also really cool because I got to become more familiar with the fish and stuff than I did before! I'm not one to know all of the different kinds of fish but I can recall a few of the popular ones like the clown fish here. There were a few dozen other examples we had to find though, so it made it fun for the little man for sure!

The little man was as excited as ever to point out and see all of the various things he could find. He was so quick at it! I think they did this once before because he immediately knew what he wanted to do when we walked away from the touch tanks. He did comment that they added a bunch of ones to the cards, so there was even some new stuff for him which was good. Gotta switch it up to keep it fresh for the kiddos! I think we spent a good 45 minutes on the exploration, but I would've liked it to be longer. As I mentioned earlier, I didn't relish in the enjoyment of it with him the way I should have as I'm typing this and that's regrettable but can't change the past unfortunately.

There were a bunch of really cool fish like this one! This purple fish here is apparently very expensive and hard to get from pet stores and fish dealers. They had a couple here and it was a really cool color. I felt a little bad for it, that we had it cooped up in the tank here but I know they take good care of their fish in this place, it's run pretty well and has a lot of passionate marine people associated with it, so I'm feeling good about knowing the fish isn't malnourished or anything.

It wouldn't be a trip to the aquarium without seeing and being able to touch a starfish! I guess they call them sea stars these days? I don't know but whatever, they are cool as hell haha. I used to find them all the time as a kid at the beach we went to often but sadly these days, I've only found them at one other beach and that was in Maine, but kind of high up. The starfish being around is a good sign that the water is clean and they have plenty of food around. When there are no star fish then you have issues with a few things on the chain there, most prominently clean water. I'm glad to see that they are in this local spot here, hoping that we can come across one in the wild this summer! That would be sweet!