Recent Adventures, Part Two

Having a membership to the Aquarium of the Pacific means we can stroll right in with our cards at anytime the facility is open. This is something we try to take full advantage of and have taken Cass many times since procuring the membership back in late December.

It also means that we're "members" of some civic minded community, members of the friends of the aquarium or the like, and receive a pretty cool magazine each month.

We also get cool invites for behind the scenes looks at new exhibits, previews of new exhibits, even a members-only adult prom (we missed it because of the timing (a Thursday!?) and babysitting matters).

Recently we got invited to check out the preview of the new amphibian section which will be opening for the full public very soon in the summer. Since we've been a dozen times already, we've watched as a lackluster corner area was cordoned off, sealed away, postered over with amphibian advertisements, and then opened back up to us last night during our members-only preview.

Amphibians are so cool...older than the dinosaurs, spread out on every continent besides Antarctica, the single and most obvious link to both water and land creatures (nearly every single specimen is both!), and a brazen disregard for our principles of specie-dom.

I could go on for too long, so here're some pictures:

Three red and black varieties of poison-dart tree frogs are in this picture, and they are smaller than plenty of bugs, especially the roaches of downtown Long Beach, which are so big they sometimes order Uber to get around. Check out Corrie's fingernail pointing at one in the bottom of the frame...

As we walked around looking at everything, one frog was busy trying to escape:

We thought the event ended at 9:30 and had arranged for the babysitter to be there accordingly. Since Cass is now the pretty sick one (feverish poor guy), we were nervous about going at all. But since his fever had broke and he was sleeping soundly, and we were only going to be a twenty minute walk away, we talked ourselves into it.

When the 'sitter told us all was good on the home front, and realizing that the event actually ended at 9, we did something we hadn't done in quite a while: we headed to a bar.

Just the two of us and each having a drink, we copped a quiet corner in the downstairs whiskey bar around the corner called the Blind Donkey and enjoyed moment.