National Zoo

Yesterday morning, we headed out for the National Zoo. They open the grounds at 6 AM, and since Sleeping Beauty had finished her night's slumber by 5:15, we probably could have made it there by about 6:30. But, alas, Sleeping Beauty's father, King Jared, did not drag his royal hiney out of bed until 7:00.

Anyway, by the time we drove to the Metro stop, then rode the Metro to the zoo (which means we had to change trains once), we arrived at about 9:00. It was already hot. Very hot. I found the amount of shade at the zoo to be rather lacking. They did, however, have a lot of those sprinklers that spray a nice mist of water over you to cool you off. I didn't chance it with Eleanor, who has (what I would call) extreme water issues. So we sweated. And sweated. But it was fun. Eleanor was very excited about each animal that we saw, especially this guy (and his two friends)...


As we left the panda exhibit, my child was screaming at the top of her lungs, 'PANDA??? AH YOU???' Nice.

She eventually calmed down, and we saw more animals. I think our little family's favorite animal was by far the little chipmunk that we saw running down the siewalk carrying a Cheeto. But we did see this guy too...

He was very cool. Eleanor was shouting, 'Teetah!! MEOW!!' That made everyone around us laugh.

By the time we got to the lion, we were so hot and tired that neither of us felt like getting Eleanor out of the stroller (again!) to check him out. But, later, when I asked her what animals she saw at the zoo, the first thing she said was, 'Wion!' Well, if that's the way she remembers it...

As we were leaving, we saw this deer. She didn't belong to the zoo. She was randomly standing at the gate of the zoo enjoying some lunch. It was very strange to see a deer standing 20 ft. from Connecticut Avenue! She was very sweet, and came super close to me.

Then, we walked back toward the Metro stop, and stopped and had lunch at California Tortilla, where I snapped these. In the last one, her mouth is FULL of brownie. That's my girl!



Some shots at the Metro stop...
And WHY does this always happen to my poor husband on the Metro? As soon as his bottom hits the seat, he comes under some sort of sleeping spell. And I'm not that nice to him about it. This time, he woke up to me putting a pink sippy cup up to his mouth and pretending he was drinking it to make Eleanor (and a couple of other folks on the train) laugh.