Fun in the Sun

Looking out on Puget Sound from the Seattle Aquarium - Taken with my Camera Phone

This past weekend hubs and I desperately needed out of the house, which is no easy feat when you're facing down the next month of bills with half of your income lost due to unemployment. Or rather it was no easy feat... until we remembered that we had free passes to the Seattle Aquarium! We quickly realized that, with the free passes and an already full tank of gas, we really wouldn't be spending more than the cost of parking!

So, off we went.

There are some places that automatically turn people into kids again. The aquarium... any aquarium... is one of them. Something about being someplace you can see and touch creatures you would normally never even really see does that to people. OH! And don't forget those folks who make their living diving in those tanks, much to the delight of the general public.

The Aquarium in Seattle has been recently remodeled and I must say, they have done a fabulous job. Gone are most of the standard square viewing windows in the wall to show you a tank. Gone are the poorly lit signs, telling you what fish you were looking at, that you can barely read in an aquarium setting. These have been replaced with tanks mimicking actual waves hitting tidal pools, caves to walk into, uniquely shaped tanks that you can actually walk all the way around. The signs have been replaced with monitors mostly.

We had a blast while we were there. We spent time watching the sea otters play and the puffins dive. We watched divers in two of the three big tanks. And when we were done? We wandered the waterfront area enjoying the colorful people that any touristy area attracts. One of the new waterfront features is a cruise ship dock, which was particularly busy this day loading people onto the Norwegian Pearl (part of Norwegian Cruise Line). We'll be getting out a lot in the coming weeks as August is typically one of our busiest times of the year... so more pictures will be forthcoming!

What did you do this weekend my dears?

Cheers!