Friends, Aquariums, and Baby Wessles

One of the great things about my job is the opportunity for travel. I have no desire to be a road warrior but going out to meet with clients is fun and a great learning experience. Last week, the client I work with was having a district meeting in Atlanta and I was invited to attend. I was looking forward to visiting a city and a state I haven’t been to before. There are so many places within driving distance of me that I need to go explore, and Atlanta has been on my short-list.

When I moved to Charlotte I was excited to find out that I was only going to be living about four hours from Colleen, a former coworker of mine and a very good friend. She moved to Atlanta about a year before I moved to CLT, so when I found out I’d be coming down for work, I immediately texted her asking about her availability over the weekend. As luck would have it, she was flying in from her own business trip that Friday right as my meetings were ending. It promised to be a great weekend with a good friend, and I was not disappointed.

The meetings went well for work, and we went to the Porsche museum for dinner Thursday night. I have about zero interest in vehicles unless it’s a big shiny Ford I’m drooling over to pull my non-existent trailer, so I can’t say I was overly amazed. The cars were very cool though and it was a fun place to visit. Dinner was delicious and I had great company so no complaints!

Friday meetings went quickly, so around noon I checked out of my hotel room and hung out in the lobby to work until Colleen picked me up from the hotel after she landed. I drove down to ATL from CLT, it was only about four hours, but we had plans to go to the aquarium and it would be easier to get parking with one vehicle. We figured we’d pick up my car later that night, and our plan worked out perfectly.

I hadn’t seen Colleen in over a year, and it was so good to catch up. We’ve kept in touch since she moved almost two years ago but prior to that we had both worked and boarded our horses together. I’ve missed my work and barn buddy! She told me how life is going as a Georgia peach and we hammered out the rest of our weekend plans. Before I knew it, (okay not really, it actually felt like a long time because traffic in Atlanta SUCKS) we were pulling into the parking deck of the Georgia Aquarium and we were GIDDY. What happens when you let two 20-something animal nerds, one of whom was a marine biology major for a hot minute (not me though I freaking love aquariums), into an aquarium? Stay tuned to find out…

We decided right away we’d need some quality selfies to document our day. Our little penguin friend helped us out right off the bat. We were directed to the ticket window and when the super friendly window person asked if we’d like to upgrade our tickets to include the behind the scenes tour, Colleen and I paused for only a second before shouting HECK YES WE WOULD. Tickets in hand, we practically skipped through security where I had to be asked to empty my pockets twice before I got everything out. What can I say, I was harnessing my inner five year old.

 The dolphin show was at 3:00 and our backstage tour was at 4:00 so we had over half an hour to explore before heading to see the dolphins. We wound through the river section of the aquarium and ooh’d and ah’d over all the fish. We stopped for far too long to watch the playful river otters before heading over to the arctic section to gaze upon the majesty of the penguins and sea otters. We approached the touch pool before glancing at the clock and deciding we should hustle over to the dolphin show before it got packed.

Sea Otter Habitat. By the time I took my phone out to take a pic they were hiding.

We paused to watch the playful dolphins circle the tank, rolling over and interacting with each other. If I could come back as an animal I think dolphin would be top of my list. They are such incredible creatures and seem to really enjoy themselves, rolling and playing and talking to each other. The little girl in me still wishes I trained dolphins for a living, but with all the scary PETA crap out there now, I’m glad I stuck with horses. (Note to my younger self: Horses were not a good idea either.)

The show was everything you could want a dolphin show to be – and more. The guy opening the show offered a few cheesy fish jokes, like what do you call a guy who comes to the aquarium wearing a tie? SoFISHticated! Har har har, we did enjoy the entertainment he provided for a few minutes before the trainers came out though we did wonder how he manages to stay so peppy the whole time. He probably goes home and is a super-grump, there’s no way someone can handle being happy all day in front of a ton of people and still be happy in real life.

The dolphins were amazing and did their jumps, splashes, and tricks with a graceful beauty no land mammal can replicate. We were in awe, and agreed the dolphin show was incredible. Unfortunately, no phones or cameras were allowed out during the show but the images of the gorgeous animals are wallpapered in my brain and I won’t soon forget them.

At this point in our afternoon we were parched and starved. There had been talk of pretzels so off we went to scope out the food situation. The kiosk we came across only had random snacks and we were sorely disappointed, but couldn’t see anything else near us. Resigned, gold fish were appropriately settled on with a bottle of water for me.

Then we turned around, and there was the entire food court. At least we never claimed to be smart. Pretzels in hand, we happily marched upstairs to watch the little rays swim around their petting pool and took a seat to wait for our behind the scenes tour to start.

This was hands down my favorite part of the weekend. We were able to walk around the pump rooms while the guide explained how the systems worked. We saw the nursery pools with baby fish and rays, and I found dozens of tiny nemos waiting to join their families in the big tanks. The waterfall that runs every two minutes to dump hundreds (or was it thousands?) of gallons of water into the coral tank was amazing. The Georgia Aquarium rescues most of its animals and is actively working to save endangered coral. We got to see tanks where they’re growing coral before shipping out to either natural ocean reefs, other aquariums, or adding to their own habitats. There is so much conservation and rescue that goes on there from coral to animals, it was a humbling experience and left me in awe of their efforts.

Pretty sure I blacked out in excitement for half of the tour, and what I do remember I won’t bore you with on a blog that is usually about my horse. The last and probably most notable part of the tour was when we got to see the top of Ocean Voyager. This tank is the size of a football field, and houses four whale sharks, four giant manta rays, and countless fish and smaller sharks. To watch the giant whale sharks coast slowly around the tank was unforgettable. It amazes me how a building can house so much marine life, it was such an experience to stand down there and look at a 30 foot deep pool and watch all the animals swim around. The whale sharks were all rescued from being turned into shark-fin soup. UPS flew them in special overseas, and never charged the aquarium for the transport. As a rule (and because of my brief stint in logistics) I despise UPS, but my icy heart forgave them a little bit after hearing that.

Talulah the giant ray 

You can sort of see one of the whale sharks under the reflections

Once the tour was over, we went back through Ocean Voyager (unfortunately no longer behind the scenes). We took a whole bunch of pictures through the tunnel before snagging a seat in the corner of the viewing theater. Sitting there watching all of the fish, sharks, and rays swim around was nothing short of magical, and with that we left the aquarium feeling dazed and amazed.

Hopping back in the Black Pearl (Colleen’s sweet new car, RIP Grey Steel) we headed to dinner at Park Tavern for some delicious food. There were a few adorable dogs seated around us, and I felt my usual pang of guilt for being away from Zu for so long. Remember when I said I’m not feeling guilty for leaving my animals? Still working on that.

By the way, this is what Zuzu was up to all weekend: hanging out with her favorite Aussie boys and her favorite Beth!

We headed back to the apartment to feed the cats and then made one more trip out to the grocery store for weekend supplies. We fell asleep halfway through a movie before heading straight to bed like the old ladies we are.

Saturday dawned foggy and chilly, exactly how a November day should feel! I’m thinking that bringing two northerners together brought the fall to the south – you’re welcome, all you cold-hating southerners!

We crawled out of bed, finished our movie, and munched on coffee cake and bananas aka the breakfast of champions. Then we embarked on the Pearl on our best adventure yet: BABY WES!

I’m very good at falling in love with my friends’ horses, and Wes is no exception. Key West was an IHSA horse at Cazenovia College until he retired in 2015 when Colleen adopted him. Eventually she moved him into Riverview until the Riverview fiasco of 2016 when he was one of the horses who left that ill-fated Friday night. Though I guess it wasn’t really ill-fated, since we left the awful situation for one MUCH better. It still sounds good though, so I’ll leave it as is.  

He is a big, charismatic goofball and I love that Wessles. He’s a 21 year old fur-ball now and it was so good to snuggle his face again! I sincerely doubt he remembered me at all but I fed him apples and pretzels anyway and let him eat all the grass. As far as humans go, I’m sure I’m alright in his book.

Reaching for the grass

This kitten's name is Dobby

Tolerant of shenanigans

I got to watch Colleen lunge him and noted how wonderfully sound he looks. She still rides him but he’s had a few weeks off while she travelled for work and she didn’t want to hop on until she had time to clip him again. Have some pictures of his de-floofing on Monday.

A caterpillar emerging as a beautiful butterfly!

Wesley the magnificent color-changing pony

It made my heart happy to see Wes so settled and enjoying life in GA. The barn Colleen boards at is adorable with the loveliest barn owner. She was very welcoming to me and I loved hearing her anecdotes about Wes and the other horses on her farm. It was everything a boarding barn should be, and if someone could ever convince me to move to GA (not likely), I’d be happy to board the Goose there.

After I shoved a few more handfuls of pretzels in Wesley’s face, we headed out to the mall where I was able to snag a few Christmas gifts.

A quick trip back to the grocery store to pick up pizza supplies and wine and we were good to go with movie night round two. One of my favorite things about most of my friends is that they don’t feel the need to go out, they are perfectly content staying in, making pizza, and watching movies. It was a perfect last night of my visit, and once again we went to bed at a way too reasonable hour because we are old and perpetually exhausted.

I hung around until noon on Sunday to watch a live Foo Fighters PBS special, then hit the road back up to Charlotte. Picking up Zuzu on my way home was easy and I got to snuggle my favorite Aussie boys for a few minutes.

Last weekend was so much fun, and I didn’t realize how badly I had needed a weekend away. It was so great to catch up with Colleen and I don’t think I’ll be waiting another year to make a trip to ATL or for her to come visit me! I snuck in a lunge and excellent ride on Goose this week, and now my mom is in town this weekend to do ALL the Christmas things.