I have been rather lucky in life to be able to travel to so many places both domestically and internationally. I am still waiting to hit my 50th state. In due time it will happen. Each year I keep wishing and trying to find a way to travel to Alaska but day-to-day life intervenes.  Perhaps this year. Perhaps next year. We shall see.  But let me move on.

In my travels, especially with my son, we often try to visit a local zoo or Aquarium.  I myself, love aquariums. There is something so magical and mystical about them. In visiting an aquarium you truly can feel transported to another point in time. You can see the majesty of the earth much more readily than in many other animal settings.  My son, who is nine years old, still enjoys the aquarium. He loves it even more than the zoo. Partly, his love of the aquarium comes from his obsession with penguins.   At this point, he has close to 20 stuffed penguins at home. We don’t even know where to put them all as a few are rather large. We were quite fortunate many years back to see the March of the Penguins in Melbourne. It was truly one of the best experiences I have lived through. Watching in complete darkness the penguins come in from the water and march up the embankment left us in total awe.  From that point on, my son cannot get enough of penguins.

But aquariums are much more than that. At least for me.   I love aquariums for the jelly fish.  There is a grand beauty to them that is just magical. I know that I wouldn’t want to be stung by one but I surely would love to swim with the jelly fish, if I could.

As it is, I started off this year with a trip to the local aquarium in Long Beach as I wanted the kids to have some time of awe, beauty, and majesty.  That is truly one of the benefits of living here in Los Angeles in that there are so many opportunities to just escape all the chaos of the world-if just for a few hours. My son got to hang out for a while with the penguins and I got to stare at the jelly fish living for a few minutes frozen in time. This little jaunt re-energized us for a bit and onwards to the next adventure wherever it may be.