Tuesday, August 13, 2013

The Fascination of Fish and Dinosaurs

An adventure with the grandsons

They love dinosaurs. They have dinosaur puzzles, books, and herds of plastic figures. They order Jurassic Chicken at the Rainforest Café. Two helpings. What is it about these prehistoric animals no man has ever seen? Perhaps it’s the fact that this isn’t fairy tale or sci-fi stuff. They were real. And they were huge.
And they’re not too young to remember the wonderful Don Bluth animated movie “Land Before Time.”  And no doubt they’re aware of  serious adult dino flicks like “Jurassic Park.” Especially since it just keeps going.
So for an end-of-summer fling I took them to Moody Gardens on Galveston Island to see the animatronic Dino Alive display. It was quite something, but not as much as I expected.  We walked through the exhibit twice and only burned about 20 minutes.
That’s why we ended up at the Aquarium Pyramid.
It was hardly their first trip to an aquarium, but this was by far the biggest one they’d ever seen. I was amazed at the way they stood transfixed, leaving nose and hand prints on every inch of glass they could reach. No TV show ever captivated them like this.
And they missed nothing. “Grandma, look at this one!” “Grandma, look at that little one over there!” “Grandma let me take a picture of the white one on the bottom!” “Hey! Here comes a shark!”
In short, discovery with kids is pure joy. You see through new eyes. You see things you’d never notice otherwise. And you experience an excitement long gone from jaded adult life.
I wanna do it again!

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