31 Mar 2021
Grey skies greeted us when we woke, and the forecast called for rain most of the day. Fortunately, our activities for the day were indoors and our hotel was just across the street so we didn’t have far to walk.
A tree full of creepy birds:
Coke world!
Inside, a collection of Coke memorabilia through the years:
For some reason, Matt had no interest in wearing these pants:
Main lobby:
You could get your picture taken with the Coke bear, but he kinda creeped me out, so I just took this picture from a safe distance:
There were tons of these decorated Coke bottles scattered throughout the building:
Inside the secret vault:
More Coke memorabilia:
Check out that sweet fan!
Olympic torches and Coke bottle mold:
I liked this neat old car:
Bubble-versions of us:
Space Coke!
So many Coke products:
Water in a bag was my favorite:
Slow-motion Coke bottling:
I appreciate whoever named the “lowerator”
And of course, no trip to Coke world be complete without a taste test:
| Product | Country | Becca’s opinion | Matt’s opinion |
| Sparletta Sparberry | Zimbabwe | Sweet and bubbly, raspberry maybe? Not my favorite, but not terrible either | Best of the bunch. Sweet, fruity, fun. |
| Minute Maid Joy | Korea | Pretty sure this one is lychee-flavored- I really liked it! | Not a flavor I’m very familiar with, but still acceptable. |
| Vegitabeta | Japan | Another one of my favorites- this one tasted like a tropical apricot! | The name makes it sound like vegetable juice and that’s basically what I thought it tasted like. |
| Bjare Lingonberry | Sweden | I like lingonberries, so I enjoyed this one- tart, not very bubbly, pretty good. | Could have used more lingonberries. |
| Inca Kola | Peru | I’ve had this one before and dispensed only the tiniest of sips- it’s bubblegum flavored and I hate it! | This one was rough. |
| Fanta Kolita | Costa Rica | This one is hard to describe- slightly bubbly, sweet and tropical, not bad, would probably drink again | Okay, but not quite as good as the Sparberry |
| Stoney Ginger Beer | Tanzania | Super-gingery! tickled my nose every time I took a sip, but I kinda liked it. | Not bad, but I’m not a fan of ginger beers. |
| Beverly | Italy | Super meh, not a lot of flavor, kind of bitter. | This one has a reputation for a reason. |
My plan was to grab lunch and eat in Centennial Park, but the rain had picked up so we decided to see if we could get into the Aquarium early (our tickets were timed for 1pm, it was only 11-ish) and grab lunch there.
Fortunately, they let us in early and we got a jump-start on checking out all the awesome fishes!
We decided to just go counter-clockwise and work our way around from exhibit to exhibit, starting with “Tropical Diver”, which included several fish I’ve seen on my dives, like these lionfish!
A zoomy little puffer:
There were a bunch of eels, but they were hard to capture:
White spotted jellyfish:
Look at that giant reef!
Sailfin tang:
Yellow tang:
Squarespot anthias:
Scalefin anthias:
Striped surgeonfish:
Bluespine unicornfish:
Aren’t they magnificent?!
Splendid garden eels! So nice to see them out and waving around (unlike the shy guys I always see on my dives that hide in their holes)
Banggai cardinalfish:
Next stop: Ocean Voyager. This exhibit had a moving walkway that snaked through an acrylic tunnel where fish…
and sharks…
and rays…
swam overhead! Seeing the underside of these guys will never get old for me!
Fortunately for me, the walkway broke down and I could linger at the windows for as long as I wanted to get fun shots like this guy’s underside:
Look at the eyes on this giant grouper!
A little zebra shark!
a younger zebra shark
I think this is a zebra shark too:
look at that face!
Angelfish:
The main viewing window- I FOUND WHALE SHARKS!!!
These guys are on the top of my “to-see” diving list.
You can dive in this tank with the whale sharks, and I seriously considered it, especially since they also have a whale shark specialty class you can take, but they aren’t currently offering the class and the cost of diving here is pretty steep, especially since it would be on top of admission to the aquarium, so maybe, when they start the class back up again, I’ll come back and dive, or maybe I’ll just get lucky and see a whale shark out in the wild!
Reflections
and yes, that pack of fish swam along with the whale shark
I felt bad for them though- the tank is pretty big (284′ x 126′, 30′ deep), but whale sharks are huge (these guys are 20-some feet long) and they were mostly just doing laps around the tank 🙁
Whale belly!
A whole pack of grouper:
Every now and then, one would venture out:
Not sure what’s up with that humphead wrasse, but he seemed content to rest on the PVC pipe. Also, look at the little wobbegong shark!!!
Spotted ray
Sneaky ray burying himself in the sand
Look at this bowmouth guitarfish’s underside!!!
AHHH!!! He’s my favorite!
After lunch, we headed over to Cold Water Quest, where I saw a ton of new-to-me fish, like this California sheepshead swimming among the kelp:
I’m not sure why one of these crabs is in a box…
Beluga!
Pretty sure that guy in the middle is laughing
A black rockfish and a copper rockfish:
A whole pile of sea stars! (I like the purple ones)
Pretty sure this guy is trying to escape:
Weedy sea dragon:
Big-belly sea horses:
I love how they wrap their tails around things
A very tasty looking lobster:
Puffin!
Free-swimming penguin:
African penguins:
A sea otter playing with its tail:
Next up, River Quest- more new-to-me fishes!
Redhorse?
Humphead cichlid:
Check out the lips on this guy!
Underbellies:
Siamese algae-eater:
Clouded archerfish:
Red rainbowfish:
Turquoise rainbowfish:
Rainbowfish:
Fire eel!
Fantastic Congo tetra:
I don’t know who these guys are, but they’re cute!
Elephantnose fish:
Piranhas!
Look at those faces!
Gar from the bottom:
Gar from the top:
Snapping turtle:
Nose!
White gators!
Baby gators:
Slightly bigger gators:
Green boa:
A pile of sleeping otters:
And finally, the aquarium’s newest exhibit: Sharks! Predators of the Deep. A darkened area with toothy sharks!
The sharks didn’t seem interested in that swarm of fish, though the hammerheads enjoyed swimming through and disrupting them:
A pack of sand tiger sharks:
Look at that toothy grin:
As we were getting ready to leave the area, they started feeding the sharks so they all swarmed the window we were at and swam overhead!
This tiger shark wanted in on the action too:
Not sure what happened to his nose 🙁
There were hammerheads too!!
I love these guys!
Normally, they’re pretty shy, so it was fun to see them out swimming confidently!
Mouth
and face
And a silvertip too!
Going up to get some food:
Farewell, sharks!
It was still raining when we left the aquarium, so we opted to just drive up Clarkesville, to our hotel for the night, Glen-Ella Springs Inn. I knew from pictures that it was tucked up in the mountains, but what reviews and Google failed to tell me was that about a mile from the Inn, the pavement ends and it’s a pot-holey, gravelly drive the rest of the way up. Oops.
Our car was just a little Mazda 3 (terrible design, by the way, would not recommend), but we made it up just fine.
The grounds were beautiful!
Into the gardens
So many pretty flowers:
(look how beefy that thorny stem is!)
Our room is on the end of that middle balcony:
But it was quite chilly out, so I didn’t try out the pool 🙂