Aquarium and Artifacts

Well, we spent the night in Albuquerque last night. And although the beds were not the softest around, it worked out fine! The hotel offered a continental breakfast which we took advantage of and the kids enjoyed. Having breakfast in the hotel every morning probably saves us about $40 a day, so we have made it a point to try and make sure we always stay some place that offers that service!

I looked online to see what there might be to do in Albuquerque and found out that they have an aquarium. Since we did not go to the one in Denver we thought this might be something fun for the kids. But I also found that the Petroglyph National Monument was just a few miles from where we stayed. So we decided to go there first before the aquarium. And I am glad that we did. It was pretty amazing, at least to me! I think the kids had fun too and they were able to earn their Junior Ranger patch. We earned a few of these last summer on our vacation, so they were excited to add to their collection.
After the park, we headed over to the aquarium. And for the price it was really quite nice. Lots to see for not very much. The kids had a blast looking at the stingrays and jellyfish, but their favorite thing was probably the giant shark tank. It had tons of different varieties of really big sea creatures! What was really nice was that it did not take very long to go through the entire thing. And since we still had a 4 hour drive ahead of us, that was a good thing. The biggest frustration was trying to use the penny squashing machine. We needed change in order to let the kids smash their pennies, but we were only allowed to get $2 worth of change, well that only allows 4 children to smash a penny and when you have 6 that does not work out very well. Luckily after some digging we were able to get pennies for everyone!
After grabbing some lunch we headed out towards Flagstaff, Arizona our destination for today. On the road along the way we saw a billboard inviting everyone to come visit the Petrified Forest National Monument, so we decided that would be a great place to stop for a break. And once again I was glad we did. It was pretty cool. So strange to find petrified trees when there was not a live tree in sight! And what was even better the kids earned another Junior Ranger badge.
After our stop we continued on into Flagstaff, found a hotel, and got the kids some dinner. What was strange was how dark the city was. I guess it is the first dark sky city and it was dark. There were lights, but they were strange. For example the kids were wearing red shirts, but under the lights they looked brown. It was weird and kind of hard to drive in, or at least that is what Rachel said! I was only the passenger and thought it was very strange! You probably would get used to it, if you lived there, but as a traveler it was very different!