My university student niece and nephew were visiting us this weekend. Rather than just sit around and hang for two days, we decided to take advantage of a brief moment of sunshine Saturday to visit the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.
Our family could be classified as "Aquarium People." My sister's in-laws (Carly and Alex's grandparents) have long been involved with San Pedro's Cabrillo Marine Museum. This is the oldest marine education facility in Southern California; in operation for over 70 years, and their innovative programs have served as a model for many of the public aquariums that have opened since, including the larger, more famous ones in Monterey and California's newest one in Long Beach. One of the best things about Cabrillo is that it is owned by the City of Los Angeles and is FREE to the public (they do request that visitors consider leaving a discretionary donation).
"Don't tell Grammy we're going to Long Beach," my niece admonished her brother.
The Aquarium of the Pacific IS bigger, more modern and has a location advantage: downtown Long Beach has become a really happening place, with restaurants, shopping and nice hotels.
That's a good thing, because the moment we got there, my husband announced he was hungry (which usually means we must drop everything and feed the beast -- he has low blood sugar or something, so these things must be taken care of quickly). It was warm and sunny, so we walked along the pier to the Shoreline Village restaurant development and ended up at the YardHouse: Great salads, sandwiches and a huge beer menu (which we did not partake of -- will have to save that for another visit).
Lunch done, it was time to head back to the Aquarium.
(Oops! The 15 minutes I've allocated for writing posts on my main blog is up... this post continues over on my Review Blog, Socal Stuff. View more photos of our day in Long Beach at Flickr.)
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