36 weeks

Unflappable is the word that would best describe Ginnie and Button as they floated lazily in their pond. Well, more suspended than floated, but anyway you look at it they were the most comfortable set of girls in the joint. Occasionally Button pushed off the bottom of the pond to the surface to draw in a breath of air, but Ginnie just floated dreamily in the cloudy water as fishes nibbled at her behind. As Button pushed off to the surface yet again, I could almost hear the theme music from 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was nice, but braving the hot sun and 40 minutes of driving for this? But for activity-crazed parents and their sugar-high kids, no one in their right mind would have ventured out of doors on a ‘hot-asphalt-melting-pavement sizzling’ day as this July weekday… And, yes of course, us – the MTB and DiT. It really was not my idea, but the missus woke up that morning and decided we had to go see the hippos! In case you haven’t guessed it already Ginnie and Button are the resident hippos at the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, NJ, across the river from Philadelphia.

Not that I minded it, once I got inside the cool confines of the aquarium, but it was hell walking across that parking lot. We ponyed up 45 bucks, caught a 4D show… Something about a deep-sea dive that involved a lot of rocking and bucking in the chair, the whooshing of cold air from vents in the seat and the occasional squirt of water from strategically placed nozzles. And yes, all this while watching the 3D feature through Urkle-like glasses. MTB, never one for rides, took the motion-free chair on advisement from the staff. After a 15-minute show we shuffled out of the theater to try and catch the exhibits. But, there were far too many children – making funny faces at the octopi, getting their smudgy paws all over the piranha tank and upsetting the sensitive starfish. I am sure I’d have enjoyed it all a bit more without those hyper-excited kids, but I guess I have my comeuppance coming, right?

The aquarium has lots of cool critters – I like the colorful fishes, the jellyfishes, the octopi and of course the sharks. I watched in wonder as Jaws eerily floated above me, as we walked though a glass tunnel, their conveyer-belt-set of teeth wickedly bristling. But the stars for me were the two hippos. But, by the time we walked our way to them, MTB’s feet had swollen to quite the same proportions as the girls’ in the tank. So we sat down and watched them for a while. It was ‘deja vu all over again…’