Georgia Aquarium, Gone With the Wind Museum--5/6/14

I am composing this as we drive to Franklin, TN for our last two days on this trip.  It was almost 11 PM yesterday when we got to bed after another adventurous day.  We went to the Georgia Aquarium, the largest in the world!!

 Needless to say it was an awesome experience seeing huge whale sharks which were actually only juveniles, the largest manta rays, and an absolutely amazing dolphin show.  The latter was the first time David or I had ever seen this type of show, so it was even more exciting for us.  We were not allowed to photograph during the show, so there are no pix of that.  You will just have to plan a trip there yourselves!!!

The aquarium is heavily endowed (>$250 million) by Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot.  It has five major areas of the world featuring the fish in each area.  Plus there is a huge area for the dolphin show which featured five dolphins and four female and two males plus a lead singer who sang and narrated the story of the dolphins involvement in rescuing an ancient ship being attacked by a dragon  There were several times the swimmers rode the dolphins and, of course, many times the dolphins jumped into the air and twisted and turned spectacularly.  There were rain storms with lighting and thunder and other great special effects—very impressive.

There is a tunnel with the fish overhead as well as along the sides with huge fish, similar to Ripley’s Aquarium in Gatlinburg, but Georgia’s “tanks” are sooooo much bigger—10 million gallons. In the Ocean Voyager area, where the tunnel is, there are four 20-30 foot juvenile whale sharks which grow to 80 feet in the wild.  We also saw the four manta rays, the only aquarium in the US to house these. 

In the Tropical Diver section there is a living coral reef with such beautiful colorful fish.  It has a wave machine to simulate surf.

River Scout features freshwater fish of Africa, the cichlids, red piranhas and albino alligators.

We were disappointed in the Cold Water habitat that the African penguins (we called them jackass penguins when we were in Africa) were not on display.  But there were very playful otters!

In the Georgia Explorer section we learned the lionfish is a very invasive, painful fish to encounter.

There were so many more fish about which we learned.  So you have to visit the Georgia Aquarium.

We had a bit of time before our dinner meeting with Kathie's sister and some of her family so we stopped at the Gone With the Wind Museum in Marietta.  This is the 75th year anniversary of the movie and there was one original gown which Scarlett wore on display.