On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Captain C
The next day, we went over to Centennial Park, to visit the Georgia Aquarium and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. This set and the next are from the Aquarium, the final set will be from the National Center.
As you may have guessed from my Japan postings, I really like aquariums (aquaria?). The Georgia Aquarium is not quite as large as the one in Osaka, but it’s still really cool, and also features a large central tank with whale sharks among the many denizens.
The entrance hall to the aquarium.
Rays always seem to be among the most delightfully goofy at the aquariums I visit. Some of them also seem to like to get petted. Maybe they’re closer evolutionarily to goofball orange cats than we suspect…
Rays always seem to be among the most delightfully goofy at the aquariums I visit. Some of them also seem to like to get petted. Maybe they’re closer evolutionarily to goofball orange cats than we suspect…
War for Ukraine Update 49: The 36th Marines Make a Breakout and the Russian Warship Has Fucked Itself
Raven
So dumb, I live 60 miles away and have never been there! My wife and her dad went, she dropped him and parked and when she got back he had fallen and they had a crummy time!
wetzel
We used to take the kids when they were little. It’s an expensive outing for a local family. The whale sharks are wonderful. There’s a glass enclosed tunnel through the large tank. As you walk, the whale sharks are crossing above you followed by their retinue and all around is a dizzying variety of sea creatures.
In the design of the aquariums themselves, I think Georgia Aquarium is a big achievement, but in the architecture framing the exhibitions, there is no aspiration more than ‘mall atrium’ or ‘convention center’. I ooh and ahh, but it’s like a lot of things in Atlanta. Atlanta has a huge style, music, crafts, art, but it’s down in the neighborhoods, Little Five, West End, Old 4th Ward.
Corporate Atlanta has no cultural knowledge. Unlike New York, Chicago, San Francisco, other great cities, where the upper crust has sylvan aspirations, the Atlanta squirarchy has no idea for public architecture. It showed in the Olympics and its residuum. Centennial Park? Really? It shows in the Aquarium. We are boobs.
WaterGirl
I like aquariums, too! Captain C, it looks like the same photo is in there twice. If you know what’s missing and send it to me by email, I can change out the duplicate photo. Unless they are not exactly the same and I missed it!
Raven
@wetzel: And they flattened Legget’s Hill for the I-20-Moreland interchange.
Betty
Beautiful images. A good reminder that we need to do more to save the oceans.
wetzel
@Raven: We found a few Civil War bullets working on the Presidential Parkway. It’s getting harder and harder to find the signs of the Battle of Atlanta. The first Chic-Fil-A is in Jonesboro. People give them a hard time but I will always be fond of the Cathy’s.
If you were a member of the Beta club in the 1980’s, you met Truett Cathy fifty times. I know. I know. The first Waffle House in Avondale Estates is a museum now. It never seems to be open. The Waffle House family is as conservative as the Cathy’s, but they are typical Baptist hypocrites who make their workers show up even Easter Sunday.
It’s easy for me to say, not being a gay person, but try to be forgiving toward the Cathy family. I think they are doing their best. I was always fond of Truett Cathy. He reminded me of my grandmother in how he was naturally kind and so his Christianity activated him. Back in the 80’s they would round you up in Beta Club, National Honor, FBLA etc and successful Georgians would call you the cream of the crop and give anecdotes and advice. It doesn’t seem like this happens nearly as much nowadays. It creates a sense of greater distance between regular people and people who are successful in business. It makes them feel like oligarchs. It’s good for young people to know it didn’t used to be that way, at least in Georgia.
Nancy
I loved the experience of being immersed in the aquarium. It is beautiful and may soon be the only kind of place where certain species survive. Hard to enjoy wholeheartedly while realizing that.
Crowd management does not appear to be a strength. A 15 year pause between visits allowed me to notice just how popular it is with parents of very young children.
Thanks for the memories.
Tehanu
Love your photos. You should visit the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, it’s fantastic — covers all the different ecosystems from the headwaters of the Tenn. River down to the Mississippi and then all the way down to the Gulf.
Captain C
Thanks for the kind words on this and the other set; I haven’t really been able to check in as it’s been a busy week at work (judging for my library’s Ned Vizzini Teen Poetry Contest–some good poems this year).
@Tehanu: If I ever make it down that way (and I’d like to) I will be sure to check it out. That sounds like a good way to organize an aquarium.