The National Zoo

Friday morning we headed to the library to look for books about Asia. But -- and this is something I ought to remember but always forget -- all the libraries in our county system are closed until noon on Fridays for staff meetings. So we went to the Annmarie Garden instead. This is a beautiful sculpture garden which operates in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution and has lots of works on loan from them as well as their own permanent installations. I remember when the garden first opened, with its first piece called The Tonger. That was a long time ago! It's 30 acres which you can just wander. The children have been for their events (such as Artsfest, which is full of vendors) but never noticed the art before because it was overshadowed. So when we went Friday afternoon and just walked the paths, they were noticing everything and really into it. We had a blast! It really tired out their little legs, too. :-) Friday afternoon we did go to the library and also played outside with sidwalk chalk.

Saturday was my Birthday Celebration and we went to the National Zoo. This is also part of the Smithsonian so it was free. All their things are. Well, it wasn't free, per se; it's just that there was no admission charge. But I spent $23 in parking because we absolutely could not find any place to park within a mile of the zoo (and I mean literally, we drove around for over an hour looking for parking) so we ended up at a parking garage at the Mariott which cost a lot but was convenient (3 blocks from the zoo) and had clean bathroooms, so there you go. I consider it money well spent. I guess everyone got up in the morning and thought, "what a beautiful day, we should go to the zoo." It was nice, though. We focused on just a small part of the zoo: the Asia Trail, the Bird House, and the Elephant House. The Asia Trail is their newest exhibit and just opened. It complements the Giant Pandas (always a draw) by showing other animals which live in Asia and I thought it was very well done. The Sloth Bear habitat was amazing. We also saw a Fishing Cat (just what it sounds like), Clouded Leopards, Asian Small-Clawed Otters, Red Pandas (which we couldn't spot) and, of course, the Giant Pandas. The baby wasn't on display, just the male and female. Apparently, she's pregnant again! Good for her, I say. We actually got an amazing 40 minute close-up of the Giant Pandas because we looked at them for a while and then went off to this odd triangle shaped dead end at the bottom of the exhibit and set up our picnic lunch on the benches. We were eating happily when suddenly we saw that the pandas had been put away in their enclosed part of the exhibit and the trainers were out setting out treats for them to discover... right in front of us! When they opened the doors, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian came out and starting sniffing around for the treats. Then they sat down right in full view of us and proceeded to snack away! We got an excellent view of them and watched for a long time. Natalie was particularly fascinated.

After lunch we went to the Bird House and then ended with a visit to the Asian Elephants. The children were lucky enough to also see feeding time at the elephant house and got to see the elephants eat and the hippos get hosed down with water. When we left I hit the gift shop and got two panda postcards and an elephant postcard for our display table, plus Pi-Shu the Little Panda by John Butler (which we read Sunday) and Noah's Ark by Jerry Pinkney.

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