Virginia Aquarium A Must See ~ Part III 2009 Vacations Series!

You can’t visit Virginia Beach without touring the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center. You’ll experience up close and amazing views of Aquatic animal habitat life. On the outskirts of Virginia beach along the marsh country like settings, you’ll find one of the most exciting displays of marine wildlife. Be prepared to walk and allow at least half a day to enjoy the scenic nature trail and gaze through all the cool and educational aquariums and habitats. With our love for wildlife in our own area, we totally loved our visit to the aquarium! I encourage everyone to visit Virginia’s Aquarium quality time the whole family will delight in, especially young children! Here’s a only a small sampling of the wonderful creatures we feasted our eyes upon! You can click on all photos to see them enlarged!

The otters took my heart with their close knit family colony. This adorable otter is so glad to be alive, basking in the sun. Look at his cute precious face.




I’ve decided if I could be reincarnated as an animal, the otter is what I would choose! The otters sleep all lumped up on top of each other, seen here in a photo my daughter took!




This otter is sleeping on his back with his buddy beside him! With the natural habitat setup they can take a swim whenever they want. My kind of life!




The sea turtles were my next favorite exhibit gracefully swimming through the water, and it was so cool to look at them up close in the huge glass aquarium. Wild to see a turtle swim, and we found it hard to get good shots cause they were constantly in swimming motion!







I was very leery to touch the stingrays in the giant touch pool. They remove the venom every 6 months, so you can actually touch them The stingrays swim like saucers through the pool, as if they like to be petted My husband described their feel as if touching raw meat! I just read on the Virginia Aquarium site one of the pool stingrays gave birth to 4 stingray pups, shortly after we left! Famous wildlife T.V. personality Steve Irwin was killed by a huge stingray!




The lionfish one of my favorite fish, has venomous spines which are primarily used to defend themselves. Lionfish eat their prey whole, feasting on shrimp and brine!




The sharks were extremely elusive, swimming around constantly as we tried to get good shots of them. You could tell they dominated the waters!



















We enjoyed our vacation immensely, and I was anxious to get home to my OP cat! The Virginia weather was hot and humid the way I like it for the beach and swimming!

When we reached the PA line, we were greeted by a beautiful PA sunset and of course the wonderful ROAD CONSTRUCTION PA is known for! We had to fill up the car and found out in a week’s time gas had gone up 10 cents, Gas was 2.55 when we left on Sunday June 7, 2009, and 6 days later on June 13, it went up to 2.65! Now gas has jumped up to 2.69! Can’t even get a vacation break when driving by car!