Mystic Aquarium: Still Better than Boston

We had a quick weekend trip down to Mystic Connecticut to visit the aquarium. We left saturday after a morning doing arts and crafts and eating donuts at the Perry’s. We checked into the hotel and went out for dinner. Instead of eating at one of the many fresh seafood restaurants or Mystic Pizza, Cristin chose Friendly’s. The girls ordered their usual entrees followed up by “worms in the dirt”, an ice cream treat featuring gummy worms over chocolate ice cream. After dinner we waited 15 minutes for Ellie to digest and headed to the pool. Although this was probably not a sufficient waiting period, it served to alleviate Cristin’s concerns. In our previous motel pool experience Ellie had vomited with little warning and Cristin managed somehow to anxiously herd the bits of hot dog into the filter. We headed upstair and the kids showered and got ready for bed. After some debate we decided not to get Ellie her own rollaway bed. Cristin built a bit of a divider for them in the queen and we tucked them in. It was a test to see how they might do in a boat berth. A test that Ellie failed miserably (see photo below). After crying every hour a so until around 1, Cristin put her in our bed and I slept on the couch. We woke late and ate a slow meal and went to the aquarium. It was a perfect November day and the Aquarium, much like our last trip, did not disappoint. The belugas were beautiful, despite their showing consistently aggressive behavior towards Ellie. The sea lion show was great and they couple the trainer’s explanations with short movies on the screens to provide a truly educational experience. After lunch we went to watch the “4-D” Polar express movie. I was thinking that 4-D meant that the seats moved around but in this case the 4th “D” is represented by vibration-inducing 100 decibel sound effects, spitting ice from a snow machine, occasionally squirts of water in the face that bore little relationship to the movie, and spritzes of several scents including burning coal and pine.  It was a nice story but if this is the state of the art in 3D movies these days I think I will probably stick with the old fashioned 2D. We said goodbye to the Belugas and headed home. It was a special time with family, a good thanksgiving tradition.

Above: This picture defines the current relationship between Ellie and Phoebe