Seattle and the Aquarium 3-30-13

It was a gorgeous day out, and while I might have been hiking, Justus was meeting a friend at the Seattle Art Museum, so Dave and I decided to drive him down and make the most of it.  Seattle, for a big city, is a really fun city to hang out in.  Once you have committed to driving down the freeway, meandering through the one-ways and finding parking, it's a nice destination. 
At first we just meandered around the water front, soaking in the sights...

And the sounds...

 

Then we ended up at the Seattle Aquarium!  I couldn't even remember when I'd been there last, and was super excited to see all the watery critters.  We were starving though, so first we ate outside on the balcony.  The food was pretty good for cafeteria style and the views were unbeatable! (well, maybe the Space Needle would beat these views)

Then we were off to explore the Aquarium.  There are quite a few touch tanks in the aquarium, so you can get up close and personal with some of the animals.  There were tanks with sea stars and tanks with urchins and anenomes, all with pretty colors and interesting textures.

 

Then there is this really cool psychedelic jelly fish display.  There are colored lights that change as the jellies float around through this glass donut that you can walk through.  I wanted to just stand in there all day and watch them as they floated past the light.

There are quite a few octopi here also.  Both the Giant Pacific and the smaller Red.  They are entertaining and graceful to watch, but hard to capture on camera with the lighting and aquarium walls.

Outside, they have river otters, sea otters, and fur seals among other things.  The absolutely cutest today though was the river otters.  They were both napping, and one was holding his tail and sucking on it like a thumb while he slept.  Awwwwww!

There was also a really cool room that Dave and I could have spent days in.  The viewing area is a sphere inside the aquarium and all around are the fish.  Some hang out in their particular spots, and others circle around.  There was quite a variety!

 

 

Wolf eel

The rat fish... terrible name for such a beautiful and graceful fish!  The Seattle Aquarium also has the 1st rat fish baby to ever be hatched and raised in captivity.

 

There was a great collection of sea pens in this aquarium.

And this tank had a great variety of colorful sea critters!  Anenome, urchin, scallop, etc. 

Wherever you are, get out there and enjoy it!