Mini-Vacation (part 2)

After one of the worst sleeping nights in history at the hotel, the next day we decided to hit the Dallas World Aquarium. We heard so many great things about it, so we decided to check it out.

When we showed up, we groaned a little, because the line to get in was wrapped around 3 sides of the (very large) building. But it only took us about a half hour to get in, which wasn't bad at all.

The name "Dallas World Aquarium" is very misleading. I'm not sure why they even call it an aquarium...more than half of the animals are not even water animals! It's more like an indoor Zoo, which was just fine with us, considering it was more than 100 degrees outside.

Before we even got inside the building to pay, we were greeted by a very cool bird who was not shy at all! He just stuck his head right out of his cage to say hello. And he was very close! He had the most beautiful eyes, too. After that encounter, we were excited to get inside to see what else was in store for us.







It turned out....a lot! Mini penguins, monkeys, anteaters, otters, snakes, sharks, jaguars...the list goes on and on!

One of our favorite exhibits was the rainforest exhibit. The exhibit is set up to mock a real rainforest, with each layer of the rainforest represented on each level. From the lower level behind one of the waterfalls, looking up.

The emergent layer had mostly birds. In the canopy layer, we saw toucans and more monkeys and a sloth. The understory and forest floor had rainforest animals, too. The thing we loved about it was that it was beautiful and you really felt like you were in the rainforest. The whole area was just open and most of the animals were free to roam around. Look how close we got to this bird:Jaimason even got pooped on by a bird, and another bird swooped in on Ben and narrowly missed smacking him in the head before it hit the lady right next to him! The rainforest is a dangerous place! Beautiful, right? (The exhibit...AND the little girl!)

Some more cute animals from the rainforest

Another cool animal we saw was this manatee. It was fun, because he was right up against the glass, so you could really see how big and blubbery he was.

They had some of the most interesting creatures here. We saw (what I swear is) the world's biggest crocodile. I wish I could explain how big it was...this thing was behemoth!The also had flashlight fish, whose cheeks right below their eyes glow, so when they look at you, they look like glowing alien eyes. The set in the bottom left-hand corner of this picture is from one fish...creepy, huh?

We also got to watch the shark feeding, which they do in one of those walk-through tunnels, so the sharks are all around you and above you. We had a great time watching the sharks and rays fight over the fish heads and squids they were being fed. It was so neat because you could see their mouths since you were underneath them, looking up.


Maleah loved it all...but got tuckered out after a while. Sweet girl. And yes, that is a thumb in her mouth. Silly girl has really taken a liking to it lately. *sigh*