Attempted mauling at the Denver aquarium!

I signed up for a half day fly fishing lesson up in Estes Park. The 1st half hour or so was practice casting in a field. Since this went pretty well, I thought I would be nailing the fish down at the river. It turned out to be a bit tougher than I thought – so many variables to keep in mind while standing in a fast flowing river with shrubs and brush up and down all of the banks to get snagged on. I did get a legitimate hit but I set the hook too hard and the leader line snapped. All in all it was a bit of a humbling experience, as every time my guide stepped in to demonstrate a way to improve the technique he’d pull out a trout almost immediately. It was really cool hanging out down in the river though, and I’d definitely do it again (maybe not before I could practice cast in the back yard for several hours though!).

After that I went down into Denver. I was going to meet up with Dan at night while he was in town for work. Before he got in, I went to check out the Denver aquarium. This place is awesome – they really go out of their way to deliver an experience that conveys the entire habitat that the fish live in, not just the fish. For example, there’s an exhibit with on open top wall tank with Indonesian fish, and behind the tank there’s an entire landscape with Indonesian tigers that roam around and sometimes jump into the tanks and swim around! It was sweet – I saw a tiger lunge at a little kid behind the glass – see pic! I tried to get the mom to get her kid to walk back and forth again a couple of times in front of the glass, but she didn’t seem too amenable to the idea ;)

I ended up meeting Dan downtown at his hotel for dinner and a few drinks. I took him to this Russian vodka bar (Red Square) that Habs and I had been to before - I think he liked it – see pic!

Later.

Andrew

Pics:

Sweet trout at the aquarium - wish I could have caught something like this in the river, but I'm too much of a 'rook in the fly fishing arena ;)


The Denver aquarium is pretty interactive...I'm within a few feet of this guy. They're kind of like kids on super doses of candy - they never stop moving around - it was kind of tough to get the shot!


Flash flood simulation...


A huge tank of water fills within about 20 sec...there's water everywhere, and if you stand next to the glass wall you'll get wet. Sorry about the pic - it was pretty dark in there so it was tough, but you get the idea...

Habs and I saw one of these guys out in Australia. Habs wigged out!

Ok, the main event. Again, it was later in the day and a bit dim in the exhibit, but you get the idea. I bumped the ISO to 1600 and went for the fastest exposure I could without sacrificing too much clarity, yet check this out - lightning quick - the tiger lunged about 10 feet forward in way under a second and his paw hit the glass right where the kid was standing. You can also see the mom's gut reaction with her arm!! Like I said, unfortunately they didn't want to try again (whereas I was hoping for a chance for a better pic ;)

Waiting for another chance...

Ok, so back at Pfizer they offered these meditation classes through the gym (to combat the stresses of a corporate environment, of course!). Anyways, I took a few classes and now I can pretty much take a sitting nap when I need to. I was so beat at the aquarium and Dan's plane wasn't landing for another couple of hours, so I found this super sweet comfy chair down near the restaurant with nice A/C flowing all around and went for it! I was waiting for someone to be like "what are are you doing, and don't", but they loved it ;)

Here's Dan enjoying some Russian vodka at Red Square. There'd be a pic of me trying some too, except that I learned my lesson last time ;)