Family Field Trip

As a teacher, I know the value of learning outside the classroom. And I oftentimes encourage my students to ask their parents to take them to points of interest that are connected to our curriculum. I call these kinds of day trips "family field trips", and at the end of last week we took one with my sister.


Long Beach does have a great aquarium, but I decided we'd visit the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium just a little further up the coast in San Pedro. The Cabrillo Aquarium is free to the public, but they recommend a $5 donation per visitor.

We were a little surprised that they have a late opening at noon, so lunch beforehand was necessary. Ports O' Call Village is just five minutes away from the aquarium, so we pulled in there for some nutrition. Auntie helped us find the right place to eat on Yelp, and some friendly diners helped us decide on what to order. We chose the jumbo shrimp fajitas platter that was served with garlic bread (instead of tortillas). Also tempting was the full tilapia - that's what we're going to try next time, but the fajitas were delicious.

I found it ironic that we were seeing fish in this state before going on to the aquarium...

Michaela is at that age where she runs all over the place looks at things quickly, so we had a whirlwind tour of the place. We started at the "tide pools" where the children could gently touch the marine life.

And then we enjoyed some of the exhibits inside on the fly. 

After glimpsing seeing some all that the aquarium had to offer, we took a short walk across the parking lot to the lovely sandy beach. On the way, Auntie used the numbered spaces in the lot to teach counting at a higher level. Michaela is lucky to have educators in the family, eh?

While the beach was really pretty to look at, apparently the water is so filthy that swimming is not advisable. Furthermore, there were strange wires and posts all over the beach sort of hindering the natural state of the beach. Julie got on her cell phone and read that the beach had been inundated with seagulls, and so the port officials had to spend like $750k to install the posts and wires to deter the birds. I wonder what they're doing about the polluted water...

Nevertheless, the sand was warm and fun to play with.

We really enjoyed our time with Auntie!