Our first attempt to visit the Shedd ended this way--which was not bad--but it did make us realize that we should try to visit the Shedd on a less busy day. So we chose a non-holiday Monday in January. Greg juggled some things in his schedule, and we excused the kids from school. It was so worth it! The crowds were minimal, which made it so much fun. We had a great time.
Want to see some pictures of fish?
Oops. I just realized I had the sense NOT to take a picture of everything interesting I saw. In fact, I pretty much only took pictures of mammals.
The highlight for the kids was the aquatic show...
with the beluga whales
the sea lion
and dolphins.
But these mammals were my very favorites. They were so happy to be there!
Mary had a huge smile on her face during the show. She was glowing. And David was so excited that he fell out of his seat! (Which reminded me of when David fell out of his seat at Sea World when Baby Shamu made an appearance. Incidentally, the Shedd goes to great lengths to distance its show from the low-brow likes of Sea World.)
The whole Oceanarium part of the Shedd is new. (Now the Shedd is on par with the awesome Monterey Bay Aquarium.) We enjoyed the sea otters and penguins and whales and dolphins and all that. Very nice.
But I think my favorite was the old school part of the Shedd--the building and tanks and displays that have been there since 1930. I visited the Shedd waaaay back in the day, when I was in elementary school. (It was also before I visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium.) Back then I was amazed by the tanks and tanks of fish. Now that aquariums are a dime a dozen, the idea of tanks of fish isn't as thrilling. But the contents of these tanks at the Shedd are incredibly interesting. (Like my favorites, the old green moray eel and the strange tiny garden eels. Who knew I was so into eels?)
Greg and I (and the kids too) really liked the Caribbean Reef exhibit. What was so remarkable was how mature the fish were. All of these newfangled aquariums might have fancy bells and whistles, but their fish are small and young. And the truly interesting ones are few and far between. The fish at the Shedd have been there for ages.
Take Granddad, for instance. He's been there since 1930! He's an Australian lungfish, and, yes, he has a lung. Also, he is probably 100 years old! (They don't know exactly how old he is--but he was a mature adult when the aquarium acquired him for its opening.) He's pretty chill. Even compared with his fellow lungfish companions.
Hey. Want to see something weird? A fish taking a gulp of air.
(Really, what is it with Australian fauna? They just can't follow any of the rules, can they?)
You can't beat Granddad. So we left on that high note, managing to beat rush hour traffic.
A hop, skip, and a stop at Ikea later, and, soon enough, we were back home in our chaos. Weary but happy.
By the way, while I was busy running away from my problems, SwindleFun was solving them for me! As always, very good advice. (Ask her to solve your problems too!)
