Sleeping with the sharks

http://www.flaquarium.org/

This past weekend Andrew and I joined the Cub Scouts on a campout at the Florida Aquarium. It was a great experience. I did not want to drive by myself in the dark to Tampa so we left early and met a couple of families for dinner. We were allowed in at 7 and they kept the kids busy until 10:30. We toured the Aquarium first, had pizza and lemonade outside, then they split into smaller groups and got to dissect a squid and have a backstage tour of the exhibits. We were then shown the area we were allowed to set up our sleeping bags. It was either in the large room in front of the floor to ceiling fish tank, down the hallway toward the shark tank or in front of the floor to ceiling shark tank. We were told that all lights would be off so we chose a nice side area in the hallway. Lights out was not until 11:30. The hallway was a much nicer space instead of being layed out like sardines in front of the tanks. Andrew slept fine and with the help of ear plugs and the air mattress I was able to sleep for about two hours at a time. We were up by 7 for a breakfast of a bowl of cereal then to the touch and feel tanks until the Aquarium opened at 9:30. We were also allowed to stay the next day and we did for a few hours. We saw the Penguin Promanade and we were about 1 foot away from seeing two of them! The drive was uneventful and we were both pretty tired Sunday night and I think Andrew is still trying to make up for lost sleep.