River to the Ocean

 

We went to the Tennessee Aquarium today, and this one's my favorite.  Gosh, I remember going to this one the first year it was open.  We'd make that three-hour drive from Cleveland, visit the aquarium, and then head back home all in one day.  Obviously we didn't do that today - we were already in Chattanooga. We got up early and visited the continental breakfast downstairs, and then got out the door to go less than ten miles to the aquarium.  There was hardly anyone in the parking lot, and we had no problems getting in there!

We were on the escalator all by ourselves here, riding up to the top floor.  That's where this picture below was taken, the beginning of the river journey.

So this aquarium is divided into two buildings, one is the river and the other the sea.  One is fresh water and the other salt water.  There's a small bit of overlap, of course.  At the very beginning, we saw our otter friends, and they were quite active!

We sent that video to Camille right away.  In the picture above, you can see Maddie had the camera again, and she was off and ready to take some photos today.  We'll start with her picks from her pics below here, just of the fresh water river journey first.

You can see the place was very quiet this morning, and that was great because we could see all kinds of fish and animals.  Plus, they seemed more active earlier.  The large fish were a lot more mobile than I've ever remembered seeing them, which was pretty cool.  Here at the top, we were under the glass roofing, watching the streams of water flow, and seeing the fish and otters in the streams.

Oh my, this one's big.  He's inside as we made our way down and into the building following the ramps down from floor to floor.  There were some amazingly big fresh water fish in there, "monsters of the deep!"  Here are some other pictures Maddie took:

We saw lots of turtles today!  Lots of baby turtles too.

This is a pretty awesome picture of an alligator.  Maddie caught the reflection just right!

We made our way down, down, down.  We spotted Miguel the electric eel, as well as many reptiles and fish.  These pictures below were taken by me, so you'll see Maddie and Mom making their way downriver through the aquarium once more.

A fish made from recycled pieces of plastic found along beaches, courtesy of the group Washed Ashore.  We've seen this organization's artwork before at SeaWorld.

Ah, it's customary to touch sturgeons here at the aquarium.  I don't know why this is, but we all were irresistibly drawn to dip our hands in the chilly water so that we could feel these sturgeon as they glided by!

The coin spiral!  Another irresistible attraction, sucking us in - and our money - like a black hole!

Maddie and Mom in the bayou!

Look at these monsters!  Seriously, they are as wide as you are.  Maybe wider!

Not only wider, but this beastie is actually longer than you too.  These things are huge!

Very colorful tree frogs!  We've got the primary colors here:  red, blue and yellow!

Neons.  It's like a pet store fish tank, but more official.

Maddie and I hatching out of our eggs!

Mom looks at the world's largest turtle shell.

Okay, we got to the end of the river, and we were pretty hungry.  It was after noon, so we decided to take a break from the aquarium and walk a block to get to the nearest Mellow Mushroom!

It was nice!  Maddie got a pepperoni and banana pepper pizza, while Mom and I shared a Pacific Rim, gluten free crust.  We enjoyed our food very much, and got to see a pretty awesome mural in the back by the bathrooms.

There was a lot more to this mural, including nearly all the characters from "Alice in Wonderland," even Bill the Lizard!

Once we got done, we decided it was time to head back to see the rest of the Tennessee Aquarium.  We were off to the ocean!  Let's see Maddie's pictures first!

This is the view from the top, where we started out.  There are a few rocking chairs up there, some pretty prime real estate where you can sit and watch the river go by.  We got to see all kinds of salt water fish today.

Pitcher plants dangling from branches... creepy!

Ah, the butterfly atrium.  This place is fantastic.  We spent a long time in there!

It's Absolem!  These are large blue butterflies, gracefully flying all over the area - beautiful!

Next was the penguin room!  These friends were right up against the glass, staring all of us down!

Now it was time to head to the shark tank!

Such graceful creatures.

We had serious thrill issues.

Gorgeous photo of the jellyfish.

Love tis shot of a ray.  

You're a clown fish.  Tell me a joke!

Let's close up with the pictures that I took from my cell phone.  Here's Maddie and Mom on those rocking chairs up top.

It wasn't too long ago we were here rocking in these same chairs.  It goes by quickly.

Butterflies float all around you.  Wonderful room!

Ah, the penguins!  We hung out here for a while, playing around with our new friends.

Maddie poses with her new friend.

Interesting shot from below a penguin.  

Maddie's in the shark cage, and hopefully it'll hold up!

And then it was off to the big salt water tanks below, where all kinds of sea life could be spotted drifting by.

The last area is as if you're going through a cave, with openings all around including above!  It's a wonderful part of the aquarium, a great place to end the visit with.

Mom was taking this picture of me over there, but we had a few fish decide to photobomb, including a ray that got ion on the fun!

One last look at the aquarium from the bottom level.  This is the fresh water building again - we went back into that one to go say hi to Miguel the electric eel.  We spoke with some employees there for a good bit about electric eels, and learned a few new things.

Oh, and here's some other pictures from today... pictures with Joey!

So all in all it was a good trip today.  We left a little later and you can see the sun shining bright there.  Back home, the rain has been torrential.  The hurricane is coming this way soon, so tomorrow we'll be heading home to batten down the hatches.  

But tonight has been fun.  We played our boardgame a few times, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."  We barely won the first time we played it, but the second time we tried the game, the Headless Horseman caught up with us.  After playing a few rounds of that game, we watched the Disney movie, of course.  Sort of a themed night here.  

After that, it was time for reading, then prayers, and then some sleep!  Time to travel back tomorrow.