What a cool aquarium
The Loveland Living Planet Aquarium in Draper, UT is pretty cool. They have a bunch of different areas all dedicated to different species and parts of the world. But outside of the aquarium is this massive structure that just kind of popped up without much explanation.
It is an old stage from a U2 tour back in 2011. As you drive by this area on the freeway, you can see this huge odd looking structure and it doesn't really make much sense about why an aquarium would spend the money on one of the largest stages ever created. But it is actually pretty cool what they do with this thing. In the evenings they play music in the large courtyard area and have some different lighting effects that shine all over the stage. It also sits on top of a massive underground building that they are creating that will have virtual reality learning centers and some other pretty cool things in the future.
Inside the aquarium it is a pretty standard aquarium that houses many different species of aquatic life, from fish, to sharks and even some penguins. They also have an area that has a lot of different animals from South America. They have a sloth in that area, but both times that I have gone over this past week, the sloth has been sleeping in a log and you can't see it. I am hoping to go there one day when the sloth is actually out so I can get some pictures of it.
The many different tanks with colorful fish and corals got me excited for my upcoming trip to Cabo San Lucas where my wife and I will be snorkeling and seeing a lot of these types of fish up close in the ocean.
I am excited to go snorkeling with my wife because she has never done it before, but she loves everything about the ocean. I used to go snorkeling all the time when I lived in Okinawa, Japan and it was so cool to see so many schools of fish.
It is so cool seeing all the different colors of these tiny fish.
This fish was awesome looking. I think it is some sort of a lionfish, but it does look a bit different and I forgot to read up on the fish while I was there to see what species it was.
When I was in Japan I saw several lionfish while out in the ocean and they were so cool. They had the orange color to them and looked a bit different than this one.
Coral is a very interesting thing. It is weird to think that these little things are alive. They had some really cool ones and they were all different sizes and colors. The lights in the tanks also made them look pretty cool too, but the weird colored lights made it hard to get really good pictures of them.
These are like little villages for the fishes. My lens gave some of these pictures a dream like effect that I thought turned out pretty cool.
Coral reefs make me realize that the oceans hold so much life here in this world and we really don't know too much about what is under the water. I don't know about you, but the ocean scares the shit out of me. There is so much in there that we don't know yet and there is a lot of stuff down in the deep that will eat you as a snack.
Speaking of things that will eat you, they have a super huge container with a tunnel and it has a lot of sharks and other large fish swimming around in it.
They didn't have any really big sharks, but I am sure this one would rip an arm off or two.
The lighting was pretty bad in there, so it was hard to get a decent shot, but I did manage to get this shot of the shark swimming around with its mouth open. Too bad it wasn't closer so we could see all of its teeth.
These sting rays were pretty massive. I wanted to get in the water and grab onto it and go for a ride around the tank.
Overall, this aquarium is pretty cool and my wife and I will be going back several more times throughout the year. We got 1 year passes for about $65 each, which isn't too bad. The aquarium gets very crowded later in the afternoons, so it is best to get there when they open to have the best experience.
They are always adding new fish and other animals as well. So there is usually something new to see whenever you go.