Washington, DC: Day 3 - at the zoo

Day three was spent at the zoo. Apparently, Wednesday is bring your screaming children to the zoo day. I nearly had a meltdown when some kid was loudly smacking - pounding - on the meerkat glass. That was the tipping point, but was preceded by hours of shrill children. It kind of sets my skin on edge just thinking about it. I eventually calmed down after a sweet, well-behaved child (I had truly forgotten that they actually existed) offered me some unsolicited help finding a hidden chinchilla.

I have to say that, as an animal lover, I was very impressed with this zoo. They clearly put a lot of time and effort into making the animals as comfortable and sane as possible, very often to the inconvenience of the viewing public. There were plenty of places for the animals to hide from the sun and searching eyes of millions of visitors.

The zoo was pretty much all we were able to accomplish on Wednesday. We had an opportunity to catch up with an old friend for dinner - we took the Metro (more on the Metro in a different post) to Virginia. I realize that DC isn't actually a state, but it still amazed me to travel by subway all the way out of the city and into a different state. I'm easily amazed.

Washington, DC: Day 1

After a heartbreaking goodbye to our dear dogs, we hit the road for Washington, DC. It still amazes me that we live close enough that we can drive to a real destination in less than five hours. The last time we visited DC we came in on a train. We talked about doing that again, but ultimately decided against it for practical reasons. We did, however, leave our car parked at our Bed & Breakfast. More on that later.

The entire point of this trip was to shuffle around Smithsonian museums, and that is exactly what we have done. We arrived in DC at 2pm, and after getting checked in, unwinding and regrouping from the drive and relearning the Metro system, it was 4pm by the time we actually stepped into our first museum, the National Museum of American History. Please enjoy some photos!










More pictures to come!