With the glow of Memorial Day weekend on the horizon, America is almost in its summer era, but at the Tennessee Aquarium, the fun has arrived ahead of schedule.
The air of celebration is thick around the Aquarium today with the news that it finished strong in this year’s USA Today’s 10Best Readers’ Choice award to name America’s Best Aquarium.
The public ranked the Chattanooga institution No. 3 in this annual contest — tied for its highest-ever standing — beating out a national field of aquariums as far away as Texas, California and Connecticut.
News of this latest accolade adds to the fervor surrounding the downtown institution that kicked off the year with the opening of the all-new Scuttlebutt Reef gallery. This latest addition to the Ocean Journey building is a showcase of colorful, if sometimes bizarre, ocean oddities that represent a who’s who — and sometimes a “What’s that!?” — of marine life…