128/365 Dawdling in Denver

When we booked our flights in June for this trip to Colorado, we chose a departing flight from Denver at 6:30 p.m. in order to squeeze as much vacation out of our five days as we could.

But when Sunday rolled around, we were tired, satisfied with the trip, and ready to be home -- yet we still had half a day to kill before heading to the airport.

So, we ventured into Denver and visited the Downtown Aquarium, which we had passed on our first day.

The Aquarium was small but nice, and didn't take nearly as much time to get through as expected.This flower was one interesting feature of an exhibit. It's Rafflesia, the largest single flower on Earth.
Now, if you've followed this blog at all, you know I love photographing flowers. But I have to say, this flower was actually... ugly.

It grows in the Malaysia area. The petals look entirely fake -- like thick rubber -- and apparently it emits a smell like strong, rotting meat. I didn't get close enough to see for myself. I half expected it to reach out and scream, "Feed me, Seymour!" like the evil plant in Little Shop of Horrors. Eek.

The Aquarium had a nice variety of jellies and seahorses. These are moon jellies.
Some were the size of a golf ball, others closer to a softball. They look so serene and pleasant in their monochromatic world, but I wouldn't want to come across them without having the glass separating us.

The final exhibit was a stingray petting/feeding pool. Visitors held a small fish between their index and middle finger, then the stingrays would come up out of the water to pluck it out of their hand, flapping water everywhere.
After we left the Aquarium, we still had a few hours to kill, so we pulled out our downtown Denver map and picked a museum -- the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

Though the Aquarium was nice, the Museum was great. I wish we had gone to the Museum from the start. We only made it through three exhibits in two hours because they were so extensive and fascinating; we barely scratched the surface of three floors' worth of exhibits. I would absolutely put it on my list of activities for my next time in Denver.

Camera: Canon 40D indoors between noon and 1 p.m.
Bird: 1/60s, f/4.5 at ISO 1000
Flower: 1/60s, f/11 at ISO 1000
Jellies: 1/60s, f/4 at ISO 1600
Stingray: 1/60s, f/4.5 at ISO 1000