Texas State Aquarium

We woke up on Friday to 50 mile per hour winds, so decided to head to Corpus Christi for some sightseeing.  First on the list was the Texas State Aquarium.  Currently, Texas houses a handful of world-class aquariums, plus dozens of smaller ones and the one in Corpus is the "official" state aquarium.

The displays are both indoors and outdoors, houses hundreds of marine animals and provides educational programs for over 500,000 annual visitors of all ages and all walks of life. The Aquarium has a vast array of displays housing fish which are indigenous to the Gulf of Mexico, as well as a few exotic species.

Here are some of the highlights:

The entry

Sculpture at the front

Changing rooms in the kid's water park

Otters playing

Sea turtle

Bo the alligator

Up close and personal with Bo

An eagle owl

The inside tanks didn't photograph well, but I did manage to get a few pictures.

I finally get to see a LIVE jellyfish!

An "upside-down" jellyfish

A lion fish

Underwater "flower garden"

Stone crab

Seahorse

One of the best parts for me was the Dolphin show.  I love watching them wild in the channel and it was neat to be able to see them up close.

Dolphin tricks

The great flying dolphin!

More dolphin tricks

Waiting for applause

It wasn't easy capturing all the tricks....

This next picture quality isn't great, but it's the stingray I was able to touch.  There was a shallow habitat that you were encouraged to dip into with your hands.  It was slimy!

Stingray in a "touching" tank

A few more images of the area around the Aquarium:

Corpus Christi skyline

The causeway bridge, seen from the Aquarium

Corpus Christi beach welcome sign

Interesting bar

Colorful hotel

Corpus refinery view

Then it was time to walk over to the USS Lexington.  I'll show you that in my next post.