The first time I had ever been to an aquarium, I was really excited. We had gone down south to Tennessee to visit my grandma’s friend Nana Betty. It was a stressful ride down south, stuck in the backseat of my Aunt’s car, with my mom and cousin Melvin. All the time we spent down there was relatively stressful, from the time we woke up at the hotel to the time we had lunch at The Cracker Barrel, to the time we went to the aquarium. The aquarium was the highlight of the mini vacation.
When we got to the Ripleys Believe it or Not Aquarium, we had to walk quite a distance just to reach the doors. There was a pathway with a cement staircase leading up to the entrance. We slowly worked our way up, step by step, stair by stair. Finally we reached the entrance, my mom, grandma, aunt, cousin and I reached for the doors all at once.
       As soon as we walked through the doors I noticed right away that the place was huge. We saw a huge skeleton of a gigantic megalodon, (an ancient shark),  huge crowds of people, some getting in, others leaving, and others just hanging around doing nothing in particular; probably waiting for someone, or talking on the phone.
       "Are we in yet? Are we in yet?" I could barely contain my excitement.
       "Almost, we just have a few people ahead of us. We have to wait our turn." My mom reminded me.
       "Ugh, but I want in noooow." I whined.
       "Just shut up and be patient..."
      Ten minutes later, we finally made it inside; and as soon as we did, we started to walk through; splitting up, but keeping each other in our sights, looking at one small fish tank after another. Each one had some really strange creatures inside of it. Most tanks were full of brightly colored and neon fish, while some of them had dull looking fish, and others had some really strange creatures that came from the deepest depths of the ocean.
There was one tank that seemed as though it were empty. All I could see was sand on the bottom, some rocks and plants like seaweed and kelp.
       “Mom, come over here! Is there even anything in here?”
       “Hm… well I don’t think they would have an empty tank… what’s that sign say?” She asked, as she pointed at a sign placed a foot or so from the tank.
       “Uhhh… it says… something about a fish that blends in with the sand and can camouflage itself to avoid predators, and catch its own prey.” Ok you little camo fish, where do you happen to be now?  We looked at the very bottom of the tank for a few more minutes, until I saw a small hint of movement towards the back. Some of the sand was puffing up into the air as the hidden fish started to move on the bottom.
       “Found it! Look see, it’s over there!” Just as I said this, I saw more movement on the bottom of the tank. There’s more of them! Wow, I never even noticed them… I just looked in utter amazement as about half a dozen of those camouflaged fish appeared from seemingly nowhere. "Woow, there's more than one!"
       "Yeah, who knew? I assumed it would be just the one." My mom said, in just as much shock and awe.
       After that we continued on through the aquarium, oohing and ahhing at various sea creatures. Eventually we came into a tunnel -like hallway that goes through the bottom of the main tank. Conveyer belts that you could stand on, took people from one end to the other, while still being able to see everything going on in the tank. At one point I looked up and there was a big shark, at least six feet long, swimming right over us, and there was another against the glass to my left.
       "Holy crap, is that a shark???" I asked no one in particular.
       "Yeah, I think it's a nurse shark. Totally harmless." My aunt said.
       "Are you sure it's harmless? That one over there seems pretty mad..." I asked, pointing at the one against the glass.
       "Yes, it is harmless. Besides, it's behind glass. It can't get you." She replied, with a slight smile.
       Now that I was reassured, I took a few hesitant steps towards the glass, and looked at the shark a little more. Well whaddaya know? It's actually kinda cool looking...  Then I noticed a small, deep scratch in the glass. It looked as if someone bumped into it and it kind of put a tiny crack in it. It wasn't anything major, but it still managed to make me a little uneasy, with thoughts of the glass breaking and a couple thousand gallons of water and sea animals pouring into the little tunnel we were in.
       We kept going on, and saw more colorful and neat fish. We eventually encountered a room of jellyfish. There were small individual tanks lining the back wall and each one had a jellyfish. On another wall was a wall sized tank that contained several different types of jellyfish. I ran up to each tank and stared at each jellyfish, wondering how something so graceful and elegant, could be associated with such negativity.
       "Come on! We've been looking at the jellyfish long enough, let's move on!" My grandma called after me, as everyone started through a side doorway into another room, with more aquatic-based oddities.
       "Alright, I'm coming!" I called back, weaving through random people as I ran to catch up with my family.
       As it turned out, we were almost through the aquarium. We entered a big room with a few small-ish fish tanks that had a few seahorses, crabs, goldfish, etc; and there was a small pool that had some neat crabs. One of the seahorse tanks had a small divot in it where someone small like me or Melvin could crawl up inside the divot, and from the outside it would seem as though we were actually inside the tank. I was up in the tank for five minutes, just watching the seahorses, as the watched me. It was essentially a staring contest between a 3rd grader and a seahorse.
       "Hurry up! It's my turn!" Melvin yelled at me.
       "Alright alright, just give me a second." I yelled back.
       He paused for a second then said, "One. Your second is up. Now get. Out. Of. There." He glared me down as I crawled out.
       "Have fun... I said, as I continued to observe the fish inside each of the smaller tanks.
       "Boys, hurry up! It's starting to get late." I heard my aunt call.
       "Oh come on! I just got in here! Can't I have a little more time?" Melvin whined as he crawled back out from the tank divot, not two minutes after he crawled in.
       "It's all your fault that I couldn't spend any time in the tank thing." He whispered in my ear as we caught up with our family, who were standing over near the small pool.
      "What's this?" I asked, curiously looking inside, and found about a dozen little crabs.
       There was a women who worked at the aquarium standing on the other side of the pool. I didn't even notice her until she started to talk. "These are some very unusual crabs. The backs of their shells are rough kinda bumpy. Go ahead and see for yourself. Just stick your hand in and pet their shells. Don't worry, the crabs won't hurt you or anything." She said with a bright smile.
       I hesitantly reached my hand into the cold pool water, and slowly stroked the back of the crab's shell with my finger. Melvin did the same. Wow, it really is bumby. Cool. "Aren't you guys going to pet them too?" I asked my mom, aunt, and grandma.
       "No, we already did before you came over here. They felt really weird." My mom replied.
       When we left the petting pool, we realised that we were back at the front of the building, and that we were next to the gift shop. We popped into the gift shop and looked around for a while, and I ended up getting a Ripley's Aquarium T-shirt.
       Once we were finally out of the building, and back in the car, I finally knew what I wanted to do with my life. I finally knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to swim with the fishes. I wanted to learn all about our oceans, to explore the very depths. I wanted to work with the weird and cool creatures that dwell in our oceans. I want to be a Marine Biologist, and I may never have realised this if it weren't for the "vacation" we took in the 3rd grade. This was the day that changed my future, the day that I decided what I wanted to do in life, the day I figured out what everything was leading up to.