Wonders of Wildlife, Aquarium

There name is pretty appropriate, the acronym is WOW! This place is relatively new, it opened in 2017, and is like a fishermen's Disneyland on steroids! We had planned on just visiting in the morning, heading to Chris's late afternoon. It is about 2.5 hours from this point. By about 1 we had "tackled" the aquarium. Little realizing this represented only about half of the facility, we still had the entire wildlife section to go. We just thought it all was in the area we were visiting.
If you have ever gone into a Bass Pro Shop you be will sort of understand. The stores always include these fabulous vignettes of outdoors scenes with "stuffed" animals. (probably a better word for it, think natural history museum) the vignettes include water, faux rocks, ledges, plants, trees, etc. Tom and I often stop at these stores just to walk through some of them. It's liked all the environments that Disneyland builds.
Lighting was all blue lights, dark, but designed to enhance viewing of tanks, and to let's you feel like you are in a water world. And then you just start walking.
Interspersed in the aquarium displays are rooms depicting all sorts of fishing history, types of fishing, hall of Fame areas of fisherman, just lots of fishing related topics. One area talked about the number of presidents that LOVED fishing. Carter and Bushes mostly. Tracker boats, owned by Bass Pro, built a Bass Force One just for. the Bushes. And all of this was put in place by the owner, Johnny Morris, who founded the national chain of stores. And the mission statement in essence is that through responsible fishing, you can incorporate conservation strategies. ( Everyone has a slightly different position on this approach...)
So almost 3 hours later we walked our way out of the aquarium and gift shop.
But I knew we were supposed to see some penguins so I asked where they were,
"Oh, they are through the wildlife photography exhibit and in the wildlife museum part of the attraction.". What?!
So we had a quick lunch, called Chris and said we wouldn't be to Fayetteville that day? Felt badly, but not sure if we will be this way again.Read more