The Shedd Aquarium: By Video

We spent Sunday at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. It's an awesome place to visit, I remember going when I was in 9th grade an a National Junior Honor Society visit. I've been wanting to go back every since. I was so excited to take ER there, she's only been to the Albuquerque Aquarium and it can't even begin to compare with the Shedd. It's a nice little one, considering it's in the high desert but the Shedd is on another level entirely. I have a bunch of pictures, which I may still bore you with...I know the last few days may have begun to feel like, "C'mon over and view my zillion boxes of slides from my vacation." Anyone else old enough to remember sitting through boxes and boxes of slides being projected onto the wall or screen? Or did I just out myself and being older than dirt?
Anyhow, I did not take that many videos and I thought it would be fun to show you some of the things we saw instead of just blab, blab, blabbing about them. Sadly, I don't have a view of the very good Fantasea Aquatic Show, it was fantastic. I tried, really I did. But those dolphins and belugas were too quick for me to get anything but blurry photos and only the briefest of clips, of the very end of their tricks. When you're watching it, you never know when they are going to pop up out of the water. If you go, spend the extra few dollars to see it, believe me, it's worth it!

I'll start with my favorite one, of my very favorite aquatic life form to stare at, the seahorses. Seriously I could watch these all day. I understand from hearing a talk at the Monterey Bay Aquarium it's very bad to buy them and keep them at home. They almost alway die:( So I'll be content to visit you when I can! BTW the Monterey Bay Aquarium is equally as fantastic, I like it even better, but that might be because I've had the opportunity to visit it numerous times and the Shedd was CROWDED so it was hard to see all the exhibits.

One of the many turtles we saw, this little guy is actually quite tiny just a few inches long.

We saw countless tanks, there were so many I can't even begin to figure out where this one is from except that I know it was from the main floor.

Our last stop was to gaze at the 90,000 gallon circlular Caribbean Reef habitat in the Grand Rotunda. That's ER you see briefly see nose pressed to the glass; you can hear her and Brad talking a little bit too.
This is us all tired and exhausted after a long day on our feet and it was a long walk back ot the car. Isn't the city pretty behind us? Makes me wonder why, seeing how we grew up only five hours away, we didn't spend more time in Chicago. It's got so much to offer and do!

I hope to take ER back to visit the American Girl store eventually and there are so many museums left to explore like the Field and the Science and Industry that I know Brad would love. Thanks for hanging in there and making it through our family getaway pictures! Imagine how many I'd have if we'd been gone longer than three days.
Happy early 70th Dad, aka Papa! It was so much fun going on vaca with the whole family, I'm so glad you liked the "Big City" more than anticipated and getting to try your first Chicago style hot dog! I hope we can do it again real soon.