National Aquarium in Baltimore

Saturday was Sarah's first day trip, ever, that I can remember at least. She's going on 2 years old, and has been on long (week long) vacations to Tennessee, but never a day trip. Anyway, we decided we would go down to Inner Harbor in Baltimore for Karen and my 5th anniversary and spend the day as a family. We told Sarah we were going to take her to see the fish and ride a train, and she seemed very excited about this prospect.

We let her wake up on her own, then drove down to the Hunt Valley lite rail stop. It was raining and a Saturday, so I decided to get out and make sure the train was running and that we wouldn't have to wait for a long time. Sarah was not pleased as she thought this meant that she was not going to get to ride the train. She was hysterically crying when I got back to the car (Karen was in there with her). We calmed her down and explained that I just wanted to check the schedule, and then we got out and bought our tickets and boarded the next train.

On the train ride, she switched back and forth between my lap and the seat next to me, which she enjoyed pointing out as "Sarah's seat" to me and Mommy. She even said to me something about riding a train, like Thomas at one point. She really seemed to enjoy this part of the trip, and the fun had not yet begun. If you ask her now what we did this weekend, the first thing she says is "TRAIN".

We got down to Baltimore and walked over to the harbor. She also went nuts at the fountain, wanting to throw money into this. We have her a few nickles that she tossed into the fountain. She also enjoyed seeing the pigeons all around. She wanted to get down and chase them, but she was in her backpack (like Dora mind you), so she couldn't get down. We grabbed a bite to eat at Harborplace and walked around the harbor for a bit, showing her the ships/boats. The Discovery store was closed, so that was a disappointment for me. I was looking forward to taking her in there and finding her something fun and educational to play with.

After our meanderings, we went over to the aquarium, or main reason for going down, and purchased our tickets. After our hour and a half wait to get in, it was finally time to see how she would react to the animals. We started with the new Australia exhibit, walking through an area similar to the rain forest they have set up in the old aquarium building under the glass atrium. There were a lot of lizards and snakes there, not too many fish, and Sarah didn't seem all that interested. We moved through this area quickly, and on to the new frog exhibit. This is where she seemed to perk up a bit. She had fun trying to find the frogs in the displays. Some she even found before Mommy or I could find them. She was very well behaved, still on my back, looking for the frogs.

After the frogs, it was time to see the dolphin show. We found decent seats about half way up, away from the splash zone, but not in the nose bleed area. The dolphins were swimming in their holding tanks prior to the show, and she enjoyed watching what little bit of them she could see at that point. Once the show started, she sat on my lap, mesmerized at the dolphins swimming, splashing, and jumping. She didn't say much, but clapped every time they did something, especially after their jumps. She remembers one of the dolphins carrying a duck around on it's belly, and the dolphin jumping up to touch the ball 20 feet off the surface of the water. She will tell you about those two tricks if you ask her about the dolphins.

We then proceeded to walk through the main part of the aquarium where they house all of the sharks, rays, tropical and reef fish. This was her favorite part I believe. At this point, she was walking as 30 pounds on my back was just getting to be too much for me. She ran from tank to tank, climbing up on the little kid steps in front of each display looking in and pointing out all of the different colors. She really enjoyed seeing the clown fish and the hippo tang (Nemo and Dori). She was so excited to get from tank to tank that she took a nose dive off one of the steps and smacked her forehead on the ground. This was near the end of our journey, and she had yet to nap, so she was a bit upset about this. After that, I carried her for a few minutes, then she was back to her normal self. We finished up with the winding walk around the large salt water reef and the shark area, then headed towards the exit. Shortly before we left the aquarium, she fell asleep, and it's a good thing, because she was able to keep dry while we walked back to the car in the rain.

All in all, we all had a great day, and I believe she really enjoyed it. I can't wait to take her to the zoo sometime in the near future.