On the last day of our trip in June out to the midwest with Lukey and Kenzie, we spent some time at the Newport Aquarium in Kentucky. Other than the two leg train ride back home, this would be the last of our sightseeing.
We almost missed seeing the aquarium. We had no idea that they only let in visitors by appointment only. We experienced this at various museums during the pandemic but never expected to encounter this after the pandemic. Once we arrived at the aquarium, we realized why reservations were required. It is clearly a very popular destination and the building is only so large. Even with a scheduled appointment, the aquarium was so crowded it made seeing things moderately difficult. Without controlling the number of people in the aquarium, we wouldn't have been able to see a thing!
When we arrived at the aquarium, it was sunny out and the temperature was in the triple digits. Our clothes were completely soaked in sweat from our mile and a half walk from the hotel. As we approached the entrance, Sheila got online to pay for our tickets and immediately noticed that we needed a reservation. If we chose the next available time slot, we had about three or four hours to kill!
We had walked over to Newport, Kentucky from Cincinnati so we didn't have a car (we had already turned in the rental car) which meant we either waited here near the aquarium or walked back to the hotel. If we walked back to the hotel, I was done for the day and not coming back. It was too hot outside to be walking the mile and a half and across the Ohio River each way twice on this brutally hot day.
After some rather frustrated discussion deciding whether to purchase tickets or find something else to do instead, we made a reservation and decided to walk around a bit to kill some time. This area has been developed significantly since our last visit so, fortunately, there was some sightseeing to do. After walking to a nearby park, we then killed about an hour and a half at a restaurant on the river. We had a few snacks and cold drinks at the restaurant then we found a picnic table in partial shade so we sat there watching boat traffic on the river to kill another hour or so.
Before long, it was time to enter the aquarium!
This is a really nice aquarium and we had a great time here the last time we visited but this day was going to be at full capacity. This made it tough to get at some of the tanks and we always felt the need to move along rather than linger. Regardless, we had a good time and it was a great visit.
This open tank, below, held young sting rays if I remember correctly. Looking at the shape of the fish Lukey is reaching out to, it appears to be a small sting ray. The only other petting tank was a shark tank and this does not look like sharks so I'm fairly certain it was young sting rays in this tank. Kenzie was a bit squeamish about touching any fish but she did it anyway. I think she quickly realized that she would regret not petting any of the fish...
I know this aquarium doesn't look like it's at full capacity but, trust me, I've never seen so many people in any one attraction (I think everyone was trying to escape the brutal heat outside). Whenever I shot photos of Sheila, Lukey and Kenzie, I purposely chose angles that put as few other people as possible into my photos.
I don't have a clue who this young child is but he made for a good photo (actually, it would make a great marketing/publicity photo for the aquarium) so I captured a photo of him capturing a photo...
A bite from one of these would be a bit painful...
Between the crowds, the very dim lighting and the fast moving, darting fish, capturing sharp photos was a bit challenging. Darkened scenes means you need longer shutter speeds but longer shutter speeds means you don't freeze the movement. Trying to freeze fast moving fish in rather dim lighting without any motion blurring is tough. Trying to guess where the fish would be when you pressed the shutter also required some practice. That being said, it was easier shooting photos of the fish than shooting photos of Sheila, Lukey and Kenzie. It was difficult capturing them alone due to the crowds and, worse yet, the lighting was tough in most cases. Sometimes, however, I got lucky and found some nice light so I always took advantage of the good light.
There was an area of the aquarium where they made it look like we were the fish underwater...
This rather ugly fish reminded me of the annoying sea robins that always used to tie up our fishing lines when we were fishing for fluke and flounder...
Heading into Gator country... shortly after the Florida Gators won the Men's NCAA basketball tournament...
A young crocodile lurking near a dock...
This tank, below, had larger sting rays in it than the tank pictured toward the top of this page and these adult sting rays were very friendly too! They had no problems allowing people to pet them. Actually, one of the sting rays jumped up along the side of the tank and mostly out of the water right where Sheila had her hand in the water and sort of hugged her! Unfortunately, this happened so quickly and surprisingly that I didn't get a photo of that.
On the ceiling of the sting ray room were these big sails in the shape of sting rays. These sails were over the large sting ray tank...
Photographer Kenzie shooting photos of jellyfish... nice, solid technique!
We had to wait quite a while to get a second or two completely alone in one of these tunnels!
Sometimes, I found some nice light bouncing off facial features...
Kenzie and Lukey each had one of my cameras. They both got quite a few really nice photo which I'll share in another blog entry. I'm a bit surprised that neither one of them has shared any of their photos on Facebook yet because some of their photos were really nice and definitely worth sharing!
Getting decent photos of the penguins was exceptionally tough! These guys were zooming across the front of the tank as fast as they could chasing kids that were running across the front of the tank. Making this more difficult is the fact that we were seated only about four feet from the front of this tank so we had to turn our whole upper bodies to track these darting penguins! We were very lucky to snag seats right in the front for unobstructed views but being so close made capturing photos extremely difficult.
To get to the exit, you could either walk around an immense shark tank or you could choose a shortcut which cut across over the tank on a shaky, wobbly rope bridge. We chose to walk across this wobbly rope bridge that was strung about three feet above this big shark tank...
Now we're on the escalator back up to street level and the gift shop...
Below is a panorama showing the view from the aquarium looking toward Cincinnati. I shot 25 photos from left to right so I could put together this 180° panorama. We walked across the bridge on the right on our way to the aquarium (the Purple People Bridge which is a pedestrian-only bridge) and then went back across on the bridge to the left to get back to the hotel (the Taylor Southgate Bridge). Our hotel is a little bit behind that tallest building with the white triangular top...
Just minutes after we crossed the Taylor Southgate Bridge on our way back to the hotel, there was an accident on this bridge and a motorcycle went flying off the bridge and into the river. Someone jumped in to save the motorcycle driver but was unsuccessful. We didn't know this until we saw it on the news later that night.
Our walk to and from the aquarium was nice despite the oppressing heat. Actually, it was far more enjoyable than if we had driven so I'm glad that this was our only option since we had already turned in our rental car.
Kenzie says the aquarium was her favorite part of our trip out to the midwest. Lukey certainly enjoyed himself too. And, naturally, Sheila and I enjoy visiting this beautiful aquarium too!
We all had a great time and we captured some nice photos of our visit. I'll share some of Lukey and Kenzie's photos in a couple of future blog entries.
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