The Atlanta Aquarium - Lots of Fish

Above – Piranha Fish.

Note. Click on any picture to make it overwhelming big and better (or worse).

We went to the Atlanta Aquarium Saturday. We invited my two sisters.

We heard on radio that the DOT was working on I-75 near downtown. The Atlanta Aquarium, on line, sells you tickets in time appointments. Our tickets were set for 9am. So, we normally figure an hour of driving to get to downtown Atlanta – but they were working on the highway, so we had better ad some leave earlier than planned – and also we were to drive across Marietta and pick up my sisters, so we thought we should leave even earlier.

Going down the I-75 we heard on the radio that the traffic was backed up all the way from downtown to the Moores Mill Road exit which slowed every down – you could expect to travel about two miles in twenty-five minutes.

Darn! We won’t get there on time! We better speed it up.

We approached the Moores Mill Road exit – the exit where the traffic was supposed to be back up to and the highway was clear. It was a traffic report from XM radio and I think they had things confused.

It was still fast sailing as we approached the next exit, Howell Mill Road, but decided to get off anyway and take the side streets. Anna and I both worked in the area about 40 years ago and thought we knew all the short cuts…. Which I suppose we do.

We arrived at the Atlanta Aquarium at 8:30. I them out in front and went to park. I met up with them at 8:35 and the Atlanta Aquarium was still closed. They would open at 9:00. It was 21◦.

As I said more than once we don’t know how to be late… or we don’t even know how to be not too early.

They had pity on us and let us in the first little section.

While we waited we had a nice little talk with the young lady in charge of opening the gate at 9.

She pulled back the gate-rope at 9 and let us flood in. This was Anna’s and my second visit and wasn’t as awed as we were the first time but enjoyed watching my sisters’ amazement of the huge aquatic life in the huge water tanks.

Each section has an employee or a volunteer on hand to tell you tons of information about the habits of the fish you were looking at that moment.

One room is a huge wall that is a huge window into an aquarium with huge whale-sharks, other types huge sharks and small sand sharks, and other interesting fish. Then, entering the room was about a half dozen volunteers. For a few minutes they stayed in a group studying the people around them. They reminded me of a movie I saw one time that a group of shy young men entered a ball-room at a girls school – and for a short time they stayed in a group sizing up who might need them to dance with them – or in case, who looked like they wanted to know about some sea creature in the tank.



This picture reminds me of Science Fiction Theater that used to be TV about a dozen or so years ago.






Beluga Whales – The Atlanta Aquarium has three. Actually, they own only one male – but two females are on loan from New York, a mother and daughter team. There are plans to mate the daughter with Atlanta’s male.

The male whale was in front of us mostly. He was very graceful swimming and looked very mystic - all white, almost glowing in the blue water.... show off.

The guide pointed out that the Beluga whale to swivel their heads just like humans and can twist and bend their lips just like humans – thus have facial expressions – they smile, laugh, and sing – just like humans. But when the male pointed at me and said something and all three of them laughed - well, that was just plain rude.




I have no idea what these creatures are. I think they are either Martians or mushrooms nose diving.









I took my usual high volume of pictures. But, somehow, they just didn’t come up to par. I think the main reason was I chose in most pictures not to use a flash… and my automatic camera held the shutter up too long to let a little light in, and of course I can’t stay still that long.


See the Sea Horse?
In the center -
Of course, of course.
Did you know the male sea horse carries the unborn babies around and gives birth to them while the female sea horses hang out in bars and play games, such as darts and horseshoes? Those volunteers have the most valuable information.

Afterwards, we wanted to eat at a certain grill we heard about in Decatur, which is a few miles east of Atlanta. We drove all over the area looking for and broke the Georgia law of stopping for people at cross walks a number of times because he were too busy looking for street signs.

Then, near Agnes Scott College we saw a woman walking for exercise. I lowered the window to speak to her and she came running over. I asked if she knew where the grill was we were looking for and she gave me exact directions, like she said, “Turn left at the next redlight and drive 1.9 miles and it is on your left.”

I thought that was strange- being so exact. But later, while we were eating lunch by the window, she speed walked by the plate glass window. I bet she has all the distances mapped and figured out.