{"id":7838,"date":"2019-03-20T06:26:30","date_gmt":"2019-03-20T10:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7838"},"modified":"2019-04-23T06:57:15","modified_gmt":"2019-04-23T10:57:15","slug":"in-the-sea-and-under-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7838","title":{"rendered":"In the Sea and Under It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A recent trip to the Windy City (temperature: -1\u2e30) included a visit to the marvelous, that is, full of marvels, Shedd Aquarium<\/a>. If you\u2019re ever in Chicago on a business trip, don\u2019t miss it; it\u2019s right downtown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were minding the two kids, ages 7 and 9, and we thought by keeping them engaged there, we could spare ourselves the embarrassment of losing chess games to them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We caught the new special exhibit \u201cUnderwater Beauty,\u201d with over a hundred species, only one highlight of which were the charming blue polka-dot jellyfish you see one of here. Of course the reef fish were bright and colorful, and the seahorses adorable, but there also were creatures called \u201cweedy sea dragons\u201d I\u2019d never seen before, pictured below. Rather astonishing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Oceanarium show with the beluga whales and dolphins, a\nsea lion and an owl (?) is always a hit. As is the penguin play area, though\nthey\u2019re outgrowing that. They enjoyed the nearby pet-a-starfish exhibit even\nmore. I could be mesmerized by the lobby\u2019s circular, 90,000-gallon Caribbean Reef\ntank for hours. In the 1930\u2019s water for the aquarium\u2019s saltwater tanks was brought\nup from Key West on railroad tank cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What did the kids like best? Petting the bony backs of the armored lake sturgeon, where they plunged their arms into the water so deep and so often I ended up buying them new (dry) T-shirts. That -1\u2e30 thing again. Flooded with atypical modesty, they were reluctant to take their wet shirts off until a nearby mom opened her coat flasher style to give them some privacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

photos: jellyfish, Vicki Weisfeld; weedy sea dragon, Magda Ehlers for pexels<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent trip to the Windy City (temperature: -1\u2e30) included a visit to the marvelous, that is, full of marvels, Shedd Aquarium. If you\u2019re ever in Chicago on a business trip, don\u2019t miss it; it\u2019s right downtown. We were minding … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"In the Sea and Under It - A trip to Chicago's don't-miss Shedd Aquarium. Jellies and weedy sea dragons.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35,104,78],"tags":[1533,380,73],"class_list":["post-7838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-life","category-the-morgue","category-travel","tag-aquarium","tag-chicago","tag-nature"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/weedy-sea-dragon.jpeg?fit=526%2C351&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-22q","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7838"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7841,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7838\/revisions\/7841"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}