Tuesday, August 20, 2024 Minnesota Meanderings: Great Lakes Aquarium

In our continuing quest to visit one attraction in Minnesota per month in 2024, we made our way to the Great Lakes Aquarium in Duluth for the month of July. If you’d like to check out previous Minnesota Meanderings, here you go: Spam Museum, Bell Museum of Natural History, Como Park Zoo and Conservatory and Fort Snelling.

Our daughter and son-in-law were visiting in July, so we obliged them to go to Duluth with us to visit the Great Lakes Aquarium. ‘Twas raining heavily as we left town, but about halfway there, the sky wiped the tears from its face and said, “You should go to Tobie’s for rolls and pastries,” which we did. If you haven’t heard that same thing on the way to Duluth, you just haven’t been listening.

The Great Lakes Aquarium is situated right on Lake Superior, or at least a bay of it, not too far from the Aerial Bridge as you come into town from the south.

**You can see the Aerial Bridge in the background**

As expected, it was full of aquariums of various sizes with various fishies swimming around in them. Most of them were freshwater fish, but they had a few saltwater exhibits as well. I’m not sure you need more explanation than that. We were offered opportunities to touch some of them, like large sturgeons and squishy jelly fish called Moon Jellies. No thanks! But others in our group were more interested in these things than I was.

**A giant catfish greets you as you arrive – classy!**

Highlight for me: the dragonfish!!!! Did you even know these existed? I did not. Normally I’d have been all about the seahorse exhibit, but the dragonfish called to me with their siren call. The whole aquarium was a testament to God’s astounding creativity, but the dragonfish were an especial treat.

**Too bad I didn’t get a better photo…**

Then to make up for my neglect, I went next door to the seahorses to say hello. They were blithely unconcerned with my changing allegiance.

I also enjoyed the bright-colored fishies, the shiny fishies, and the weirdly shaped fishies, while being a little repulsed by the eels and the brutish looking sturgeons.

**Sure looks like he woke up on the wrong side of the bed**

**This grotesque thing is an electric eel. A face only a mother could love.**

**They’re used to the paparazzi by now**

**“The sun is out, the tank is clean…the tank is CLEAN?!” (Finding Nemo)**

Oh, and there was an octopus that came out from his hidey hole. I wonder if all these creatures can see us like we can see them?

Coral! I spent time staring at coral, too. There’s something mesmerizing about the way it gently moves with the little currents in the water.

The upper floor was a bit more “educational,” and by that I mean that there was a lot more reference to “billions of years,” with God getting not so much as a footnote. Some day these places are going to have to overhaul all their verbiage and I hope I’m around to see it.

And now, for my favorite photo:

We putzed around in the gift store for a short time and you will not be surprised to find out that I bought a sticker with a dragonfish on it.

We drove over to Park Point but never found the beach that I remembered enjoying as a child.

From there, we drove through Duluth past the Glensheen Mansion to go and play on the shore with the rocks and take photos of seagulls. I did my usual bit with making some transitory art with rocks, sticks and tree bark. It’s what I do.