Since the weather report said that there was a 10% chance of rain today, we decided to visit the Tennessee Aquarium. Wow! What a great aquarium - I think it's probably the best one I've ever been to. Actually it is advertised as the highest rated aquarium in the US. There are 2 buildings - the River Journey and the Ocean Journey. Each building is 4 stories tall, and we started with the River Journey. At the beginning of our exploration, we had the pleasure of meeting a pygmy hedgehog - very cute. The first exhibit was seahorses, sea dragons, pipe fish and a whole lot of other fishies. There are many different varieties of seahorses - some no bigger than your pinkie nail - maybe even smaller.
We headed up the longest escalator I've even been on - it went up at least 3 stories. As you visit each of the exhibits, you gradually wind your way down to the ground floor. There are some snakes in the Canyon Exhibit, the Delta Exhibit and there was one other exhibit, but I don't remember what it was called. Anyone that knows me will know that I avoided those yucky things like the plague - did not even look their way. An open brochure makes a great "blinder". There was an incredible variety of turtles - even a Green Turtle - very, very big. I took a picture of a really gigantic shell but forgot to get the info about it - sorry. The river otters were fun - very busy. Saw some young alligators, too - did you know that they chirp?
We saw fresh-water sturgeon, trout, bass, you name it. There were some fish that I'm not sure were river and lake fish, but there were some big ones. We finished up with the River Journey - it took roughly an hour, then decided to get some lunch before we embarked on our Ocean Journey. While we were eating, we noticed several groups of kids on field trips entering the Ocean Exhibits - uh-oh - maybe we shouldn't have eaten first. We let the kids get a good head start, and then entered the Ocean building.
This time each escalator was only 2 stories, but they were consecutive. The first thing we encountered were fresh-water stingrays. Very different from the ocean variety. Their underbelly looks kind of like the face of a duck. We were greeted with a hearty hello from a pair of Hyacinth Parrots - then they laughed at us. There were a lot of beautiful orchids - one tiny one that actually smelled like chocolate - don't know if it tasted like chocolate, though. There was a touch pool with rays, small sharks and pretty fishies, but we chose not to do the touchy-feely thing. Of course we had to visit the butterfly exhibit - the flowers were gorgeous - and the flying "flowers" were awesome. After checking to make sure we didn't have any hitchhikers, we moved on.
On to the penguins! There are 17 different varieties of penguins. I had no idea! The Ocean Journey has both Macaroni and Gentoo Penguins - I had never heard of either one. Very cute, though. They all have colored tags that correspond to their individual names.
As we moved through the rest of the Ocean Journey, we saw lots more fish, several varieties of jellyfish, starfish, octopi, coral - a large variety of sea life. All in all, it was a most enjoyable visit to an aquarium.
We decided to walk to the museums at the top of the hill - fortunately there was an uphill "elevator" for old folks like us. Then, unfortunately, there was a skybridge over the highway that we needed to cross to the museum. With Mike holding my hand, and me not looking down, we made it across - if I had any doubt of my fear of heights/bridges, they were reaffirmed today. This is something I should definitely avoid! We continued uphill a little farther to the Houston Museum of Decorative Arts. This museum contains the collection of a woman known in the area as "Antique Annie" - when she died, she left a collection of 15,000 antique pitchers as well as many other antiques, valued at $6 million. She was also known to be married as many as 9 times - very possibly more. After the exhausting hike up the hill, Mike chose not to go into the museum - I was very disappointed. Anyway - check this lady out - www.thehoustonmuseum.com/antiqueannie.html - quite an interesting story.
After nearly 4 hours of walking (& hiking uphill) in much warmer weather than we expected, we headed back to our motel and rested our weary bones. Went to the Cracker Barrel for dinner - busy place, okay food. Time to download some pics - see y'all tomorrow.
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