Showing posts with label aquarium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aquarium. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

south carolina...take two

One of our favorite places we visited while in South Carolina was Brookgreen Gardens.  This is not just a garden, but also a zoo and the site of the Oaks Plantation which was set on rice fields.  The zoo portion had all kinds of animals from bald eagles and otters to alligators and foxes.  

The garden portion has wonderful collections of flowers and huge sculptures all over the grounds.  

Here's Kinsey in the Palmetto Garden.  I'm in love with the brick wall in the background.  It's two bricks wide on each section.  This would be great in our backyard...maybe in the future?

An overview of the Palmetto Garden.  The palms are on all four sides and hundreds of poppies line the pool.  The poppies are such a great burst of color.  I'm so happy they were in full bloom when we visited!


Foxglove up close.  I'm thinking about getting some for next year's garden.  


Me and some new friends. 


Just one of the many smaller sculptures in various beds throughout the gardens.  








In the middle of Live Oak Allee.  These are centuries old Oaks with Spanish Moss hanging off the branches.  Another favorite spot!  Below the trees are beds of hundreds of daffodils.  Unfortunately, they were practically over blooming when we visited.  I can only imagine how great the yellow flowers looked against the green leaves and dark trunks.



Of course, we did visit the beach.  We went to Huntington Beach State Park and the beach within walking distance to my grandparents' house in Murrells Inlet.
Kinsey isn't doing a crazy dance in the picture below (at least not at that moment).  He's bending down to touch the water on our last morning in the Grand Strand.  




This is a huge fish/shark tank in the Charleston Aquarium.  Twice a day or so, someone dives in the tank and feeds the fish.  We weren't here when that happened, but it must be crazy to see. 


The albino gator.


Hello Mr. Turtle...(or Mrs. Turtle).  

The week and a half went way too fast!  We're hoping to go back sometime in the next year.  This was our first visit in 7 years!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

our anniversary...and jellyfish!

Today is Kinsey and I's 3rd anniversary. So this past weekend, we decided to do a series of fun and relaxing things. We took a trip to Baltimore on Monday and went somewhere we've wanted to go for a while now......the Baltimore Aquarium!
In case anyone is planning a trip here, Mondays are a great day to go. We ran into zero school field trips and overall it wasn't too packed. We saw all the different exhibits and a lot of fun fish like this one.....



However, our absolute favorite exhibit was a temporary jellyfish room they have.  It's called "Jellies Invasion".  The aquarium's website has a fun section on the exhibit here.
I took some of the best pictures I ever have of the jellies.  The contrast between light and dark really turned out beautifully.  We had a good time watching them swim in the huge tanks and spent a great deal of time in this room.  




Here's some upside down jellyfish.


Looks kind of like a sun print, huh?  All the stringy tentacles just float around like this.

This one reminds me of space.  Kind of like those satellite photos you see of planets.

The last two are my favorites from the day.  I loved the tank with these jellies in.  The colors ranged from a really soft peach to a deep red.  The contrast of the background really makes them jump out.