A Trip to the Zoo

This week is our Spring Break. While some of our friends left town for the week headed for sun and sand, we stayed home. We have had quite a bit going on lately and needed the down-time at home before finishing up the semester and heading into an even more jam-packed summer!

But Spring Break wouldn't be Spring Break if we didn't go somewhere! So, on Monday we took a day trip to the National Zoo in Washington, DC. Normally when we head to DC, we park and take the Metro into town. This time we decided to drive in and park close to the zoo so that we could have our food & drinks nearby...and because taking the metro wouldn't save us any money now that there are 6 of us! There's also something to actually seeing DC when you go to DC...so I was really pushing to drive in. So, dressed a la Mincer*, we had our provisions and were ready to go! Having been to the zoo just last spring we used an old map to plan the day.


We drove, and got to the zoo, and found no parking. While we were stopped at a red light, the kids and I quickly left the van and headed to the zoo, hoping to meet up with David before too long. I didn't have a cell phone, our drinks, any snacks, and very little money. But, I did have my camera!! And, we were finally inside the zoo! We stopped in the Visitor's Center for a potty break, stood in line for some delicious freshly squeezed lemonade, and went to look at the animals on the Asian Walk. David, meanwhile had found parking and had begun following Morgan's carefully planned itinerary for our day. He spent the next hour and a half running through the zoo looking for us, while we stayed pretty much in close proximity to the Asian Walk, thinking we'd see him sooner or later. After a time, I gave up and rented a double buggy to push Will, who was falling apart, and Katherine, who wasn't quite.

Once we were situated with our buggy, we were found by a very sweaty man dressed much the same as my children. We took him in, ate his food, and allowed him to spend the rest of the day with us. After some time, once he was de-sweatified and speaking coherently, it became clear to us that he was our long-lost father and parker of vans.

Now that we were all together we could actually begin to enjoy our day at the zoo! The kids had all decided what animals just had to be seen - Will's crocodile, Katherine's lemurs, Caroline's flamingo & Morgan's pandas, elephants and giraffes. We walked, totally abandoning Morgan's outdated itinerary, but allowing her to take the lead, all over creation!

We visited the bird house where Katherine saw her biome project subject - the toucan! We took lots of pictures in an effort to get geared up for that project! Unfortunately, we did not see Caroline's flamingos...she's still fussing about that! We also did not see any lemurs or giraffes. Don't know what's up with that! After checking the website we learned that the zoo's only giraffe was moved to a Florida zoo to make room for elephant trails!

We saw the lions and tigers, the sea lions, the pandas, the kids' farm/petting zoo and even went into the reptile house (ick!). We saw the baby panda and the baby elephant. The quote of the day came from Will who upon witnessing the baby elephant relieve himself, announced to all, "Wow, he can pee from his back trunk!" Pretty amazing animals those elephants!

We stopped at the Kids' Farm to see the goats, cows & fake pizza! They had an incredible exhibit of where pizza ingredients come from. We didn't waste time reading about that, but we did enjoy watching the kids play on the rubbery mushrooms and onions and crawling through the rubbery black olive!


While we missed seeing the great apes we did find the statues. Somewhere I have a picture of Morgan when she was not even 2 with these statutes so whenever we go to the zoo we just have to get a picture of the kids with the gorilla family!

By this time it was getting late and most of the animal houses were closed. People were leaving the zoo, and the walkways were almost deserted. We had a very peaceful walk out.



*a la Mincer - last summer we travelled to a lacrosse tournament with another family. As part of our trip we visited the National Aquarium in Baltimore - both families - together there were 11 of us! In order to keep us together and not lose any children our friend got us all matching t-shirts from Mincer's - these are "can't miss 'em' t-shirts. As we walked through the aquarium and downtown Bmore last year, and the zoo this week, people couldn't help but comment. What a great idea...I'm going to do that next time...what great shirts!