I got to Chicago early last week, ahead of the Chicago Spring Fling 2009 (CSF) weekend meetup of garden bloggers from across the country, so I could do a little touristy stuff. I didn’t get out as much as I had planned; mostly, I corrected my sleep deprivation. But I did get to go to the Shedd Aquarium.
When I was a boy, I lived in Florida for six years. That period of my childhood secured many of the interests that sustain me today, including photography, cosmology and space exploration, general natural history, and oceanography. I’ve lived my entire life no more than 20 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, and most of it less than 5 miles. If you had asked me, when I was 10 or 11 years old, what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have responded: “A neurosurgeon, or a marine biologist.” (Yes, I have always been a geek, and proud of it.)
So, when I travel, I try to make a pilgrimage to whatever oceanographic attractions area nearby. Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium has been on my list to see. So it was easy to make that my first (and, it turned out, only) side-trip during CSF.
I didn’t know that much of what I saw was brand new. I also didn’t anticipate that, by mid-morning, I would be jostling for viewing space with thousands of school-children of all ages. I would have stayed longer, but I needed to eat. The line for the cafeteria went down the exhibit hall, so I had to leave earlier than I wanted to forage elsewhere.
Belugas
Sea Otters
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