The Shedd Aquarium

On Thursday, Brock and I visited the Shedd Aquarium where I saw beluga whales--and thousands of other marine dwellers--up close and personal.

I officially love beluga whales so much that I have even composed a haiku in their honor:

Big, smiling faces

Lumpy bodies that look weird

Cute, white blobs of love

Believe it or not, my poetry abilities are inherent and weren't one of the things I learned at the Shedd Aquarium. As a native Coloradoan, I haven't exactly been to Sea World dozens of times (unlike my husband) so I was super-excited to go here! We started out in an exhibit called Amazon Rising, which takes you on a journey through the Amazon before, during, and after the flood season. One of the coolest things in that exhibit was a caiman...which is basically like a mini-crocodile! It sat with only his head sitting above the water...and he was dead still. The thing didn't even blink! Not a ripple around him! I kind of wanted a fly to buzz around his head just to see if he would savagely attack it or whatever. Or like have someone dangle a stuffed animal from a stick right in front of him...(awesome idea, I know!). We also saw PIRAHNAS, which are fierce-looking suckers!

Another cool thing we saw was a Caribbean coral reef. It was this huge, tubular tank right smack dab in the middle of the museum, with all sorts of Caribbean aquatic life in it. Colorful fishies, ugly fishies (tuna...NASTY), bonnethead sharks, rays, and so on. A scuba diver drops down into the tank to feed the fish 6x/day, and narrates what he's doing via underwater microphone, but we were never around to see this happen. Oh well. What would he say? "I'm going in the water...it's wet...I'm feeding the fish...I'm swimming around...I'm going back up...."

We also saw a 4D effects show called "Planet Earth." 4D is just a 3D show + when something on the screen splashes into water, you get splashed with water out of little holes in the seat in front of you, etc. You've probably been to one at Disneyland or something. Anyway, it was a a really cool show that was only about 15 minutes long, and it just took you from pole to pole on an aquatic adventure :) There were some AMAZING shots in it, too! From penguins in Antarctic to a mommy polar bear and her two cubs scaling a STEEP, snowy mountainside, to this crazy shark jumping FOUR FEET OUT OF THE WATER to catch its prey!!! It was awesome!! They slowed it down like 40x so you could watch the savagery nanosecond by nanosecond...sweeeeet.

Then we headed to the Oceanarium to see otters, dolphins and...my favorite...BELUGA WHALES!! They also had an Arctic exhibit nearby with penguins! So cute!! I love penguins! Right after we exited this exhibit (try saying that five times fast!) we went to a show called "Fantasea" that incorporated all of these animals. Not gonna, lie, the show was straight up HOKEY. Like this little girl is "randomly" chosen from the audience (who amazing knows exactly the format of the show and how to act!) and she goes on this magical journey using the special Shedd Aquarium talisman/necklace to transport her wherever she needs to go! Did I mention she hops in a boat that flys off into Neverneverland? Oh, and that the final scene is her putting a stethoscope to a dolphin's heart, then one to her own, and finding out that our heartbeats are all the same?? I was half-expecting Zac Efron to row out on a boat singing "We're All in This Together!" lol but seriously...despite the corniness of the show, it was STILL awesome to see the belugas and dolphins to all their stunts! Dolphins can jump SO HIGH! And they would shoot up out of the water and do like 720s! Rad. The penguins kind of sucked. They didn't really know what was going on lol.

After Fantasea we checked out Wild Reef, which was an exhibit that taught you all about...well...reefs! We saw jellyfish and seahorses and sharks and turtles and octopus and Nemo fish and all sorts of other cool stuff! One of my favorite animals was this special kind of sea star that looked really chubby! It was so cute! Oh, and sea cucumbers. They're super nasty and I would NEVER want to encounter one in real life, but from behind a glass window they're pretty cool! Do you know why fish swim in schools? Because sharks have really bad eyesight, so if fish keep together, from a distance that shark sees only a blob...which he interprets as being a whale! Pretty crazy, eh? (And this has been your public service announcement for the day...)

We topped our Shedd visit off by meandering through Waters of the World, which are themed tanks that hold over 90 aquatic habitats--ocean coasts, tropical waters, Africa, Asia, Australia, etc. This is where we saw the FIERCEST ANIMAL OF THE DAY: the spider crab!!! Basically...imagine a normal crab...WITH 6 FOOT LEGS!!! AAAAHH! I would seriously DIE if I ever saw one of these while scuba diving! Waters of the World is also where we saw the OLDEST ANIMAL OF THE DAY: an Australian lungfish named Granddad! He's been at the museum since 1933...now that's old!!

All in all: a fantastic, educational visit! :) I still can't wrap my head around all the different animals we saw. How did God come up with all of them?! He's definitely in tune with His right brain, that's for sure!