Pokémon Fossil Museum

One of the coolest things about the Field Museum is their Pokémon Fossil Museum which was part of a Pokemon event in Chicago. The problem was getting tickets for it. When we first checked online, the tickets were sold out for months. So, we got regular tickets to the Field Museum instead because there were still tons of cool exhibits to see. The day before our actual Field Museum ticket day, though, we went over to the museum along the beautiful lake path. In Pokémon GO, there is a special Pikachu wearing an excavator costume that you could only catch a certain number of times each day, and I wanted to catch as many as possible. I could only catch it if I am physically at the museum. While we were standing on the steps in front of the museum, we decided to drop in and ask if they had any Pokémon Fossil Museum tickets available in person. Shockingly, they had a few tickets for the last entry time the next day! We were so excited and bought the tickets immediately. 

I have played Pokemon Go for almost six years, so getting a Pokémon that was exclusive to the museum made the visit feel even more special. The amount of details in the game were amazing because there were Rock-type and fossil-related Pokémon spawning around the Field Museum that appeared inside the exhibit as skeleton models. As soon as I opened the game up, Pokemon like Kabuto, Archeops, Aerodactyl, and more spawned everywhere. When I went into the exhibit, I saw models of those Pokemon’s fossils. Having the experience be both in game and in real life was amazing. 

The exhibit also did a really good job connecting Pokémon to actual paleontology. Instead of only displaying Pokémon models, it compared them with the prehistoric animals that influenced their designs. Kabuto, for example, has features similar to horseshoe crabs and other ancient arthropods. Archeops is connected to Archaeopteryx, an early feathered dinosaur with features associated with both non-avian dinosaurs and modern birds. I also liked that the exhibit treated the Pokémon almost as if they were real organisms. Their skeletons were displayed like actual fossils. A Pokémon design normally just looks like a cool creature, but putting its skeleton beside a real fossil encourages you to think about why its body has that shape and what kind of animal could have inspired it.

I went to the exhibit because I was excited about Pokémon, but what surprised me was how naturally the real paleontology fit into it. The Pokémon made me pay closer attention to the fossils, and the fossils made me notice details in Pokémon I had seen for years without thinking much about where their designs came from.

USA Triathlon National Championships

Last summer, I competed in the Culpeper Triathlon and placed 3rd in my age group. While winning a bronze medal was amazing, the best surprise came a couple weeks later. I got an email inviting me to compete in the USA Triathlon National Championships in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in August of 2026. I started training for the competition in late spring by running and biking along with my swim practices.

Some days were rewarding, while others were much less satisfying. There were swim practices I barely made it through, steep hills I had to bike over, and runs that left me sore all over. The most challenging part was working on my endurance. My runs couldn’t just be 3 miles, even though the run portion of the triathlon was 3 miles. Since the run comes after 10+ miles of biking, I had to account for how tired I would be, leading to 5-6 mile training runs. Over time, I started to notice improvements. I became more comfortable with pacing myself and trained hard by running on routes with hills.

Competing at Nationals in Milwaukee was different from any triathlon I had been to before. The sheer number of competitors was amazing. I met many young competitors like myself. Many competitors started as swimmers just like me. Before the race, I was nervous, but I had fun chatting with the other competitors and shared stories about how we trained and prepared for the competition.

The race itself was difficult, especially because there were details about the course that weren’t obvious on the map. I hoped that the water in Lake Michigan would be cleaner and cooler than the Potomac River near my house. But, the minute I jumped into the water, I immediately realized the water was so cloudy I couldn’t even see the swimmers right next to me! Nonetheless, it was very exciting to swim against so many amazing athletes! The bike route was along the beautiful lake. The hardest part was a surprisingly steep highway ramp that seemed endless as I pedaled my bike up.

By the run, I was hot, tired, and hungry, but I knew I had to give it my all. My swim coach’s words replayed in my mind throughout the run. He always said that if you were going all out at the finish, you didn’t put in enough effort in the middle of the race. Needless to say, I definitely gave the race my all. Crossing the finish line was surreal as I got my medal and had water shoved into my hands. Simply qualifying for Nationals was amazing, but the most important part of the experience was learning that improvement is gradual. I would love to compete again next year!