Griswolds Family Vacation...Day 4

We headed to the National Zoo on Wednesday. We were going to head to Gettysburg on this day but after driving close to 6 hours total on Tuesday the thought of having to drive another 5 hours total in a car was not appealing to me. Me and Adrian have been to the DC zoo a lot because it is a great zoo and it is free admission. In hindsight with the heat we should have headed somewhere inside and air-conditioned but this is where the kids wanted to go

The best part of this zoo is the panda exhibit. They do look like stuffed teddy bears in real life. You want to go over and hug one but then reality sets in and you realize that this cuddly bear would rip your face off if needed. I must admit at this point that I handed my camera to the twins for the zoo trip. I was hot and tired and they wanted to take pictures. We ended up with a few good ones, a lot of animal pictures, and A WHOLE bunch of blurry pictures. They did not take pictures of the panda either.....I do have blurry pictures of the bamboo that they eat.

I love otters. If there is a show on Animal Planet that has otters I will watch it. Their personalities make me smile. On a documentary on Animal Planet they had a story about a female otter that only gave birth to still born babies and out of desperation of wanting a baby of her own she would try to steal the babies of the other otters; I cried, yup I cried while watching this silly documentary. I wanted to personally find an abandoned otter baby and bring it to this otter so she could have a baby. No more Animal Planet for me, I get to personally involved.

These are the pictures I ended up with. I am not sure what exhibit this is and I am also not sure who the kid in the picture is. Lets face it probably at this point I was trying to find some shade and something cold to drink....I will admit it I can be just as whiny as the children but I just store my whining internally and it manifests itself in to uninterested, detached,haughty seclusion....

Last time we came to the zoo, which was two years ago they were just starting the new elephant exhibit. This is part of it. It looks like a golf course. It is beautiful and huge and perfect for these gigantic animals. We did not spend a long time at the zoo. It is a great zoo but when the temperatures are 100 plus 90 percent humidity it is hard to stop and take everything in. Me and Adrian used to go in the fall and spring when we lived there. It sits right downtown and is surrounded by some great restaurants. It is well worth a visit if you ever find yourself in DC.....
Day 5, Downtown....to be continued......