Whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium

My fiancee and I love going to baseball games. She is a die-hard New York Mets fan and still won't talk about their late season collapse of last year. Every year we plan a short trip where we go to see a Mets game at a stadium we have yet to visit. In the last few years we have been to Wrigley Field in Chicago, PNC Park in Pittsburgh, Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Camden Yards in Baltimore, RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., and most recently, Turner Field in Atlanta.

One of the reasons we like to go on these baseball trips is because we get the opportunity to visit a U.S. city we might normally never go to see. Atlanta is a good example. It's a fine city, but I never really considered taking a trip there.

What I discovered is that Atlanta features the world's largest aquarium, the Georgia Aquarium, which opened in 2005 and was funded mostly by a $250 million donation from the founder of Home Depot. Also, the Georgia Aquarium is one of the few aquariums in the world to feature whale sharks.

As a kid, I was fascinated by sharks and loved to visit the New York Aquarium in Coney Island to see them. The whale shark is interesting because it is the largest living fish species and can grow to 40 - 60 feet long. As we might never get the opportunity to see a whale shark up close, we decided to visit the Georgia Aquarium. They had about 4 whale sharks on exhibit, but none of them approached the 40-60 foot range. Nonetheless, they were very impressive.

I write about our trip to the Atlanta and their aquarium because yesterday was the first time I checked out my pictures from that trip and came across one I found interesting. Sitting in front of the huge shark tank was a father and his baby as a whale shark swam by.