Dallas, Part 2

Day 1 of our Dallas weekend was spent playing at Legoland and chowing at Spiral Diner. Recap here. On Day 2, we headed to the Dallas World Aquarium.

It's called an aquarium, but it's really half tropical rainforest, half aquarium. We made our way through the rainforest first.

I couldn't believe this stork was real, until it moved. It was the biggest bird I've ever seen!

The official name of this tree is the Monkey Don't Climb Tree. For obvious reasons. Ouch.

Loud, squawking, constantly fighting flamingos! Not the most peaceful birds. But pretty.

Look at this frog's expression. We have all been there.

I literally squealed when we came to this sign.

I had never been this close to a sloth before. There were actually two, but one was asleep. This one was wide awake, however, posing for pictures and, later, placidly eating his shoots and leaves.

Next we observed the aquatic tanks. Jackson and Olivia were delighted by the otters, who would repeatedly swim right up to the glass like they were playing hide and seek.

I'd never seen a polka dot stingray before. Such a cool pattern! I love stingrays.

Undersea creatures are pretty amazing.

Such variety.

Jackson was really interested in the anemones and starfish. Because SpongeBob.

These sea spiders will haunt my dreams.

To get that image out of your brain, check out what we saw next.

A little back story. Tony is obsessed with manatees. His love of manatees is perhaps equal to my love of sloths. He calls them his brothers of the sea. So when we first passed by this tank, he was a little crushed to find that the manatee was sleeping with its entire body turned away from us. But when we passed through again towards the end of our visit, the manatee had perked up and was swimming adorably around in its tank, which it shared with various fish and turtle friends.

Eating its salad. Total herbivores, they eat 150 lbs. of greens a day!

The manatee had a toy stick that it carried around. At one point it dropped the stick, and the stick floated up to the surface. The manatee swam vigorously until it reached the stick and grasped it again. It was almost like a dog playing fetch! I wonder why it is so attached to the stick. 

At this point we'd seen pretty much everything and the kids were reaching their limits of appropriate museum behavior, so we broke for lunch.

Out of all the dining options in Dallas, we chose...Spiral Diner again! 

Party sampler to start, with chips, guac, queso and salsa.

Orange spice iced tea, so good.

I was going to get the blue plate special Zucchini Po'Boy, but they were out of French bread. I didn't want to eat a po'boy on plain sliced bread, so I went with the Nachos Supremo. These nachos were dressed to the nines with cashew queso, quinoa, corn, olives, scallions, guac, sour cream, jalapenos and cilantro. Every bite made me so happy.

Tony had the Spiral Burger on a traditional meaty patty, with all the fixins, and a side of potato salad. The kids had the same things as the day before (spaghetti and grilled cheese).

Goodbye for now, Dallas. It was fun!