News and Notes from an Atlanta Mom about school, home, life, pets and more.
From there I'll be cleaning up and heading out to the Village of Stone Mountain. I'll be working for the Georgia Aquarium at the city's Blue Grassroots Music & Art festival.
Feel free to cheer us on in the morning, or swing by and visit me in the afternoon.
It was PACKED when we went in. I'm glad we didn't go on a rainy day, you wouldn't have been able to move. I'll admit, I'm very spoiled when it comes to Aquariums. I was able to identify a good number of the fish in their exhibits without looking at the labels (so proud of myself). For once I didn't wear my volunteer t-shirt, I did that at the Mote but I don't think with all the people it would have stood out.
I realize none of my photos were of fish, but that's because they didn't come out. Ripley's does have a tunnel with a moving sidewalk where you can see barracuda, sand tiger sharks, sand bar sharks, nurse sharks, grouper, eel and misc other fish. They have a touch pool full of horse shoe crabs. Now, I'm not sure I agree with their policy but apparently you can pick up the crabs and turn them over (out of the water). I didn't let my kids do that as I really don't think it's a good idea. They also had a ray touch pool. They have cow nose, southern sting ray and eagle rays in theirs. It's also harder to access the fish.
At any rate, it took us about an hour to work our way through with the crowds. For the price, it's worth the U-pick-it combo ticket.
If you take a behind-the-scenes tour, you'll get a better view of this. This is the surgery area for the animals. Cool, huh?
For active and retired military personnel. Bring your military ID during Nov. 8-16th and get 1/2 off entry into the Aquarium. Woo Hoo!
My husband and I went Friday night to see what it was like. With the kids off visiting grandparents it seemed a great way to get out by ourselves for a bit. The group was RUA 6 and was quite enjoyable. My husband found it strange to be at the Aquarium without either a camera (though I had mine) or kids. If you enjoy Jazz music and get the chance before Sept. 7th, I recommend it. You can get more information about it from the Aquarium web site.
Since I already wrote about our visit here, I won't bore you with the details all over again. You can reread them at your leisure.
What I wanted to do, though, was tell you how cool I found the Mote facilities. We took a guided boat tour around Sarasota Bay and had a blast. I would love to go back and try one of the more "intense" tours, but that'll have to wait. We took the basic tour and got to see dolphins in the bay, a large (but dead) tarpon, nesting sites for egrets, pelicans and herons. The tour guides also trawled and showed us a burr fish, pin fish, hermit crabs, a lizard fish (ugly fellow) and more. Definitely a great opportunity there.
The Aquarium itself isn't as big as the one here in Atlanta, but that's hardly surprising. What they don't have in size, they make up for in displays and different fish. They even had a giant squid in preservatives that you can see (named Molly). For once, my kids actually touched critters in the touch pools (they seem to avoid them here). My daughter was quite adamant that she be given a chance to touch a ray (she almost went swimming with them). They have a couple of webcams into their exhibits that you can check out on http://www.seatrek.org
Then of course, they have the rescue and rehabilitation center. In the center they had loggerhead turtles, manatee and dolphins that you can see and visit. Behind the scenes they had cameras that you could see some of the more critical patients currently there.
Much to my husband's amusment when we went, I wore my Georgia Aquarium t-shirt. It's a good thing I did. After talking to another of their volunteers, I got to go behind the scenes briefly and see some baby loggerhead turtles that they'd just gotten in (just out of the shell) that they were going to release somewhere else.
My husband had told me when we were on our way that this "side trip" should be worth the extra couple of hours drive. In the end, everyone agreed that it was. :)
Various counties and private schools in Georgia have started spring break. Gwinnett County doesn't have spring break until April. With the various road closures in downtown today as well as all the radio/television stations stating for everyone to stay out of downtown, I was surprised to see so many at the Aquarium today. It turns out that with spring break, there wasn't enough to hold them back.
Fortunately most of the roads have been reopened, though expect traffic heading to the Aquarium. Personally, I'll hold off visiting with my kids until after the spring breaks have finished.
I'm taking my kids down tomorrow for the first time in months. Yipee!
The Aquarium is starting renovations already to improve different things around the facility. A good bit of that will be behind the scenes, but it's all necessary. You can see the list of proposed changes on the Aquarium's web site.
More than 3 million people have wandered through. Here's to the next 3 million!
