field trip – Catching Marbles

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Mystic Aquarium has been on my bucket list for a few years now. Everyone I talked to seemed to rave about it saying it was better than the Boston Aquarium. The only issues were that I didn’t really want to go during the summer season when I was sure it’d be packed and I also wasn’t sure the $41 per adult ticket fee was reasonable. I mean, that’s a lot, especially for someone like me who likes to blog destinations that are accessible even to the poorest of people, *cough cough* myself. But you know, there comes a day for everything.

It was the dead of winter, there was snow on the ground, the sky was gray and the temperatures were let’s just say nippy in the 20s. We figured this would mean the aquarium would be more or less dead and we could wander around like the soul survivors of a zombie apocalypse. But alas no!

When we drove up the entire parking lot was FULL with numerous cars circling trying to find a spot. I wandered into overflow parking which was also almost at capacity. We parked, looked incredulously at each other, and started to walk towards the ticket master which it appears has been replaced with a self sign-in kiosk. Probably for the best. We weren’t even in the gates yet and we were swarmed on all sides by dozens and dozens of babies and toddlers, accompanied by their mums, scarcely a dad in sight. No children seemingly over the age of five and so many of them all bundled up in tiny parkas wandering around in the cold and the gloom. What was going on?!

I’ve been to the Boston Aquarium many times (before it’s somewhat recent renovations) and I naively thought aquariums were indoor facilities. Not this time. We waddled up to the first large outdoor tank which held three beluga whales. I’ve never seen a beluga whale before and they… looked like rubbery marshmallows with weird blubbery heads. I struggled to figure out if they were adorable or only a face a mother could love. Two swam around while a third was vertical and lazily drifting from the bottom to the top, to the bottom again. Weird.

Somewhat embarrassingly I still don’t have a coat at this point in my life (after getting too plump to fit in my all-time favorite coat and then declaring I was not going to buy another one, I was just going to lose the weight! Ha! I’m just as pale and chonky as those damn belugas now. And unrepentant about it.) So, I stuffed my hands in my sweater sleaves and continued on. Boy, was I surprised how much of the aquarium is outside! There was a lot! Belugas, sea lions, seals, walruses, and even penguins. Each had a volunteer attempting to tell us about the animals but I think they were just as overwhelmed by this bizarre massive influx of toddlers as we were. They seemed tired and just narrated in monotone, “And that’s Stella there… the one who just came to the surface…And now she’s gone back down again…” Very informative.

The penguins were my favorite of these outdoor enclosures because they were cute and I didn’t feel like they’d rip me to shreds if I accidentally tumbled into their enclosure. I wasn’t so sure about the seals and whatnot. Those things had massive teeth and moved through the water with a disturbing quickness. Sea puppy my ass, those are just wet Shutzhunds.

I was quite content to be moving indoors after this. As we walked in there was a circular tank just within the door with what I would guess were saltwater fish who were “donated” to the aquarium when they got too big or expensive to maintain by private owners. Later on, I’d see a full-grown Achilles Tang and be in total shock. Never knew they got that big! YIKES.

From here there were all sorts of tanks with various kinds of fish and habitats. There was one poor woman (my companion thinks a volunteer) nervously following the swarm of tiny people, a rag in one hand frantically wiping the boogers and apple sauce off the glass as if she thought it might be acid. Germaphobe? Overstimulated staff? Who knows! But whatever they were paying her it wasn’t enough.

I was happy to see all sorts of fish and critters I’d never seen before. Big fish, little fish, fresh water fish, marine fish. A shark and stingray touch tank was nearby. I pondered if they could catch measles. I hoped not. In any event there were colorful cichlids, charismatic Amazonian fish, and a surprising amount of non-fish critters which included some huge crabs, a spiny lobster, the cutest damn frogs I could have possibly asked for, and of course a few turtles scattered about as well as a few lizards and creepy crawlies. I could probably park myself in front of one of these tanks for a while and just relax… if it weren’t for all the crying and screaming. I did find one mother with her baby doing just that. She was talking about the octopus although it was unclear if she was narrating to her baby or trying to talk to us, the only other unoccupied adults. I get it. Being a single mom is HARD and often very very lonely. I commented the octopus was pretty neat and I think it was funny he had a dog toy in his pen.

From here my companion insisted we see the sea lion show. OK… It wasn’t any additional charge, we just had to be there on time. So we wandered in and took a seat in what would end up being a pretty damn full gallery. The humans in this performance bounced out with the energy of a highly caffeinated children’s TV host and the kids ATE IT UP. The premise of the show was that there was a mission to be accomplished with the help of the kiddies in the audience. They yelled on command and did little poses. It was kind of heartwarming and adorable.

There were three seals performing that day and they were enthusiastically silly, jumping, swimming, striking poses, shaking their weird rubbery dog heads yes and no, retrieving props and waving, you know, all the classics. I laughed with the children. It was all very sweet and had an anti-global warming message which… these days it’s just nice to see science out in the open without being screamed at by a flat earthers or whatever.

After the show we wandered back out, saw the tanks we had not yet seen, and decided to try the additional bonus exhibit which this month was Sea Dinosaurs. What? I get to see dinosaurs too?? Yes please! This was an additional $15 a person. We paid and wandered in. The ceiling was decorated with big replicas of fossil sea creatures – mostly ammonites. Inside the main hall there was what I can only describe as a scrabbling course for children which put them in harnesses and let them climb on platforms and tightropes above the crowd. If I were three feet tall I would have been ALL OVER THAT. I sighed at my cracking joints and lamented that youth is wasted on the young.

We wandered about for a while finding a self photo booth with megalodon jaws, a projector sand pit, and some sort of weird psychedelic acid trip of a thing that made our dancing silhouettes into a mass of crazy colors in real time. That was fun. Really fed my inner child. Again, I probably would have poked more at these if it wasn’t such a busy and chaotic day for the aquarium. People tend to look at adults funny when they cheekily decide to play too, though I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this and do believe the world would be a better place with more whimsy and less taking ourselves so seriously.

And so that was our trip to the aquarium. We left laughing but kind of exhausted to go to an old haunt Mystic Pizza for lunch. It never disappoints.

With cold weather finally upon us, and my health taking it’s seasonal decline, I have started to alter my destinations a bit – though I will likely continue to trek through the woods when I can I think it’s time to adjust my attention to some interesting indoor locations. This last one came up as a surprise. I was spontaneously invited to attend a dinner at East Hill Farm, an event they put on maybe once a month or so.

I have driven by East Hill Farm MANY times. I had no idea what it was, I thought it was probably an equine breeding facility or something similar but actually it’s a pretty large complex that has a whole host of services from vacation rentals, special event dinners, wedding bookings, horseback riding lessons, field trips, meat sales, you name it, this place has their paws in it. How could this get by me so unnoticed?! Probably because many of their services are beyond my normal price range, but that’s OK, there’s nothing wrong with checking them out!

So I ended up at this dinner with a group of people and as usual I was a bit out of it. Though I knew where this farm was I didn’t know that so I typed the address into the GPS which summarily drove me into the woods where the road ended rather abruptly. I had to turn around and try again! But I was not late!

I drove in and parked, this place was packed. Luckily there was someone waiting out here for me because there’s three entrances into the place and it’s fairly disorienting. I sat down at the table, laughing about the little mishap on the way over. There was a big table of appetizers here and people were picking at them buffet style. I was starving. I took a piece of vegetable pizza and some other random tidbits and sat down. There was a fascinating mix of people here – from the very young to the very old, many dressed up fancy, but just as many wearing casual clothes. A violin player serenaded the crowd. Off in a side room there was a silent auction composed of all sorts of goodies from local farms and crafters – 50 pounds of potatoes, a box of gourds, several jars of zucchini relish, an unlabeled mason jar of apple cider moonshine. The crafters items were less impressive – etched glass, a few carved woodblocks, a few felt pieces, nothing particularly out of the ordinairy, nothing you couldn’t find in a kitchen or country store. I pondered if I could help that but there was no information on how to donate.

I had quite some time as we waited for the actual meal. I had no idea what to expect but there was a card here with the menu. I thought it was like a normal menu where you pick what you want off it but no, everyone would be fed everything on the menu… four or five appetizers, a rather large meal, followed by several desserts! They specialize in seasonal foods and anything maple syrup. This time around they started out with a bowl of tomato bisque which was amazing followed by a blueberry fritter in fresh real maple syrup which was almost almost too much for my palette to bear. Delicious! The salad was less impressive but not bad. Dinner consisted of pot roast, savory mashed potatoes, carrots, and warm apple sauce that I think was imported from heaven. Never had applesauce warm before. Now I wonder why! Dessert was made from various combinations of local ice cream, blue berries, and maple syrup which was also amazing but by this time I was too full to eat any more. So was the rest of my party. We skeddaddled a bit early, before the last dessert which appeared to be a full bowl of vanilla ice cream topped in maple syrup, something I would normally jump at if I weren’t so damn full!

Outside a horse stared intently at the bumper of a car in the parking lot – checking it’s own reflection? I have no idea. It was weird. All around there were pastures for horses and who knows what else, a large barn off the back of the parking lot. This place must be beautiful in the daytime, maybe I was starting to see why someone would chose to have their vacation at a farm. I will be keeping my eye on this place in the future!

**Photo not taken by me – but I needed to put something up of the establishment…

<strong> If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

Tag: field trip

Mystic Aquarium – Mystic Connecticut

A Local Secret – Dinner at East Hill Farm – Troy