The National Aquarium

This is a shot I took of the lion fish. I remembered it from the "Ocean Explorers" cd rom that we had as kids. Kami? remember?

We went to the National Aquarium in Baltimore last Friday night. The admission is about $30.00 per adult during the regular season, BUT it is the off-season right now, and Friday nights are "take a dive after 5 night." The admission was only $8.00 and was totally worth it. This is a cool wall of pictures which Logan and Seth loved.

It was freezing cold that evening, and our eyes were watering. It felt like we were walking across the tundra in order to get into the aquarium. Downtown Baltimore is really cool, and the aquarium sits over the inner-harbor. This is the really cool looking Barnes-and Noble and some shots of a boat in the harbor. I also thought this shark-submarine was pretty cool. I only took a few pictures because we wanted to get inside before hypothermia set in.

Strollers aren't allowed inside the aquarium since it is set up in an upward-spiraling layout. There are escalators and moving sidewalks going up everywhere. We had the Kelty pack, so things were excellent. These bubble tubes are the entry way to the aquarium. Seth looks creepy in this shot, but I needed to include the bubble tubes. He'll just have to explain to his posterity that he was fussy that night, and he didn't want his picture taken at all. (That was true by the way, I felt like I had two toddlers with me that night) Logan loved them so much and kept saying "bubbles, bubbles." Seth later apologized for being difficult. :)

I had never seen such humungous fish before. The walls of the aquarium are the fish tanks, so it feels like you are underwater. I couldn't believe how big the ocean fish are. I also liked the Amazon river exhibit. It feels like you are just under the surface, and you can see all the tree roots growing in the river. The biggest fish I have ever seen was floating in that river, we called him "cow." He's grazing in the background of the shot below.



Here we are in the rainforest canopy. Sweet. There was a big sloth just slothing up above us in the tree, and some birds just flying around. There were little plackards with pictures of each animal that was in the exhibit. One of them had a huge redish bird-eating tarantula on it, and I was terrified that it was going to come crawling out of the foilage at any second.
(I just realized that I look exactly the same in this shot as I do in the one posted with the cow-fish-how odd.)

The shark exhibit was much cooler than Sea World SanDiego's was. It was a big circle of shark infested water, and we were standing and walking right in the middle of it. AWESOME! Logan kept saying "cool!" and he growled at the sharks.

Here we are in the Australian Outback exhibit. **Nerd alert** I felt like somewhat of an expert on this one, seeing as I just finished reading "Steve and Me" by Terri Irwin. I also watch Croc Hunter on Animal Planet, every day, at 3:00pm. Part of me wished I was wearing khakis, and I may or may not have quietly whispered "crikey" when I saw this little fella. Sidenote: Logan has a scab on his nose from falling down the stairs, after attempting to walk down them just like mom does.

They had a dolphin show that we could've gone to. It would've been cool since it was in a small indoor arena, however we didn't want to pay. Just outside the arena was the dolphin tank, and, once again it felt like we were underwater. We watched the dolphins jumping out of the tank, but we watched them from below, it was cool. Another visitor cupped her hands around her lips up to the glass and made kissing sounds. I started getting embarrassed for her when all of the sudden three dolphins came right over to her and kissed the glass back. Then we started moving our heads back and forth and so did the dolphins. We twirled and they twirled. I thought, wow, what smart animals! They probably thought, wow, what dumb humans! I didn't take any pictures, I was too into shaking my head back and forth. All in all it was a great night, and thanks to Betty the Garmin, we didn't get lost in the wrong part of town.

P.S. We live 20 (freeway)minutes from downtown Baltimore, who knew? Thanks to the trees, I had no idea! Next stop: Attention CARLY: Charm City Cakes. YES.