Journey to the Whaleshark

For my last Spring Break of my undergraduate career, I decided to drive 1,100 miles roundtrip to see the whaleshark at the Georgia Aquarium (which happens to be the largest aquarium in the entire world).

Of course, this roadtrip consisted of camping in particularly cold weather, sleeping on uneven ground and lying on a sunny beach in which the 50 degree wind made us wear sweatshirts. This journey, even if it was miserable in some aspects (especially Wal-mart in Montgomery, AL), rejuvenated my anxiety of graduating and making something of myself. Alain de Botton tells us that the ideal of travel is only achieved in reflecting on one's travels, as the actual experience of traveling is exhausting and never the way one wants it to go.

However, while traveling across five states with my best friend, I found myself enjoying even the most unenjoyable of moments because life is best lived in good humor. We began the journey after spending 5 hours at Pep Boys; my tires were in need of replacing and a. the alignment guy was late by 2 hours b. they didn't know how to start my car and c. they broke the clutch pin, so I had to start my car by getting on my knees and pressing in this broken clutch pin while Jennifer turned the keys. Thus, from the very beginning, our journey was much like the film Little Miss Sunshine.

The Georgia Aquarium was a religious experience for me. The first thing I encountered was a touch pool the size of a classroom full of cownose sting rays and bonnethead sharks. The aquarium divided their exhibits between different ecosystems in the aquatic world: coral reefs, deep ocean, cold water, amazon, gulf coast, etc. They integrated the different ecosystem into the exhibits themselves; The Amazon exhibit was layered with waterfalls, trees, tanks of giant fish on the ceiling to illustrate how interwoven the jungle is, and plenty of information cards detailing information that wasn't merely elementary. People around us were speaking French, German, Spanish, English and Chinese. We had to wait a few minutes by every tank because the aquarium was packed with people united from all different places just to stare at odd animals. Even though there were children screaming and squawking, running into my legs and knocking over each other, I was completely at peace.

I think this is why I believe in zoos. Obviously, there is an ethical and an unethical way to keep an animal in captivity. When handled intelligently, these places like the Georgia Aquarium can help people gain a consciousness of the interconnectedness and complexity of the world outside his or her own life.