The Bunch Go To Galveston: Day 3

There were beautiful sunsets.

The only planned out day we had while in Galveston was on our third day. L had wanted to visit Moody Gardens and see the rainforest exhibit and the aquarium. Downtown Galveston was about half an hour from our site and we wanted to get there at 10 am when they opened because of the heat wave. We figured we would tour the rain forest exhibit first. My thinking was the rain forest had to be crazy hot and humid so if we did that first we could then tour the air conditioned aquarium during the hottest part of the afternoon. It was crazy humid and hot in Galveston, but it was actually bareable if you were near the ocean. The wind off the gulf was crazy high, but helped create a cool breeze. I was surprised when we got to the rain forest exhibit and it had air conditioning. It wasn't set up to cool the whole building obviously, but there were vents blowing on to the walk way for the patrons to be comfortable. It really made the experience more enjoyable. The rain forest is basically like what it sounds like. They made a rain forest and just let the animals roam free. There were parrots, monkeys, sloths, and all kinds of Amazon fish. The monkeys were actually close to the walkway, but we never found the sloths.  The rain forest was fun, but our favorite was the aquarium. Basically they have about 3 gigantic aquariums that each have about 3 levels that you walk around. You see what's going on on the top of the water all the way down to the very bottom and everything in between. I will say that as cool as this was, the St Louis Zoo's penguin exhibit is still hands down the best penguin exhibit we have ever seen. Moody Gardens was fun and we recommend it if you're in the area. After having fun all day we headed back to the resort to go play in the ocean. D even played in the ocean with T for over 2 hours! They had a blast playing in the crazy waves. We were so exhausted from having so much fun all day long everyday that everyone slept great in the camper. It is probably the best sleep I have ever had on vacation. I noticed while we were at the beach that A had two very dark moles. She NEVER goes outside or wears tank tops so I haven't seen them in awhile. They are on her upper shoulder and armpit. I remember these moles from when she was little and they were NOT that color so I freaked a little and mentioned to her that as soon as we got home we were going to take her to have them removed. Well, if any of you know A, she is a worry wort. She freaked out and said her fun vacation was now ruined. She became completely obsessed with what might be wrong. Fortunately, we were almost done swimming and after a good's night rest she quit dwelling on it and enjoyed the last two days of our vacation. Just a side note, we did did take her to the dematologist on the very first day it was open once we got back and she did have them scraped, but they would not completely remove them until the lab results come back in a couple of weeks. I fully expect to have to go back to have them removed completely since they were black. My dad and D's grandfather have both had skin cancer issues so we try to be proactive about proper sun care.

Moody Gardens was fun. Kind of like a Museum meets Sea World.

The Giant Otters.

We were already having a great time looking at the otters and we hadn't even gone inside yet.

The air-conditioning made this experience so much better than we had anticipated.

It wasn't a real tree, but was still huge.

We had several beautiful tropical birds come out to see us.

The smiles are real! We had so much fun. We NEEDED this vacation. It felt like we were finally back to normal.

Funny story: It turned out there were live ants everywhere by this sculpture. We had to dust them off our ankles, but luckily no one was bit.

They did a good job with exhibit.

They had several interactive games.

The weirdest ducks I have ever seen.

We both enjoyed our vacation even though it was insanely hot and sunny.

L trying to talk a selfie with the bird while T posed for my picture of her taking a selfie with a bird.

A taking a picture of the gorgeous parrot.

The outside walking area reminded us of Lake Michigan when we visited Chicago, just no yummy hot dog stands or sailboats.

The aquarium was so neat!

Frog boys.

Their penguin exhibit was good, but it can't compete with them being out in the open an arm's reach away in St Louis.

So many smiles.

The jellyfish exhibit was the largest I had ever seen

They had several different types of jellyfish and several different ages.

The largest penguin was over T's waist.

They also had a seal and sea lion exhibit.

We really enjoyed how lucky we were to have a fairly empty beach next to us.

A after I told her about her moles and she stopped playing in the water. I learned my lesson. From now on I won't say anything until she goes to the doctor.

I just thought the old man plaque was funny!