Washington DC Day 7- May 20, 2023

 Excessive Elephants

Because our final day was a Saturday, breakfast stayed open an hour later. We slept in a little bit more and went down expecting massive weekend crowds. There were none.
Sadly, there were also no bananas. Cue song.

Any excuse to press that button is a good one.
 
Tom, the Latin server who helped Rosa find her way through gluten free selections all week was there again to assist her. There was also another guy who sounded like he smoked at least twelve packs a day that complimented my sneakers.
 
We went back to the room to rest a bit before our last adventure, and then checked out. Down in the lobby, we witnessed some more staff conflict. The desk clerk pointed out a valet was just standing outside doing nothing. When we went out to where our car was to be delivered, we heard her and the janitor giving each other grief for varied reasons.
 
DC Flashback: We ended every family trip by stopping at the zoo on the drive home. It seemed to be the logical way to go this time.
 
On this day that we decided go to the National Zoo, we learned following my parent’s lead of stopping there on the drive back was the proper choice. The other option would have been to visit it another day and do local sightseeing with our luggage in “storage” at the hotel before driving home.
 
On the way out we saw the belongings of others that (unlike the Disney method of luggage storage, which involved a room full of locked cages and redemption tags) were stored in this hotel’s method-

which involved “a pile in the lobby.”
 
We drove out of DC proper and up the hills towards the National Zoo. As expected, we passed a great many embassies, including Peru. I’m not sure if the Navicomputer was trying to get back into the groove of driving after a week of walking directions, the zoo was oddly located, driving in DC is a general nightmare or some combination of the three. We took a large number of tiny back roads and right before we saw the zoo sign, I was convinced we were hopelessly lost. We were then directed past a seemingly never-ending cascade of parking lot entrances until we were allowed to enter one of them.
 
We knew we reached the right place.
Well... obviously because of the signs.
But also, because it smelled like a zoo.
 
We reviewed the map (Spoilers- it was useless.) and chose a course of action to loop through the exhibits, hitting likely lunch locations when needed.
 

We started out with the “Kids Farm” section, with Anabelle getting excited about a petting zoo experience.
 
(Spoilers- It was indeed a farm, but there was no petting… alas.)
 

We saw a few farm animals, and the “highlight” was a chicken celebrating its birthday. Undeterred (yet) by this indication that we were in no way in our beloved Bronx or Denver Zoos, we continued on.
 
It looked like we were passing behind a building, but the road led directly to the entrance of the Amazonia exhibit. The first few rooms had large tanks, making us think it was a mini-aquarium.
 

(Spoilers- It was…sort of.)
 

Most of the building had rooms with home sized aquarium tanks filled with mostly home style tropical fish. There was an electric eel we caught a keeper talk for. I learned a couple of things I didn’t know.
A) The eels can release their charge in small bursts to stun prey, or all at once to defend themselves.
B) Electric eels are air breathers, due to living in such brackish waters.
C) Anabelle does not care at all about electric eels or anything else in the tanks, and went to watch a video about birds.
 

There were “pond” sections, mostly above the large tanks we had seen downstairs. There a spoonbill presented his back end to me. A “moonbill” if you will. They were building a nest, which was nifty to see.
 

A hay thatched set up had a large group of Guinea pigs. “Yum, Cuy!” said Rosa.
Anabelle and I hurried her out of there before she tried to figure out if they were gluten free.
 
The last room was “The Frog Zone.”
“I’ll be over here by the coral,” said I.
 

Finished with the building, the South American theme continued with a spectacled or Andean bear exhibit, thrilling Anabelle. Her variable scale of animal preference that led her to proclaim herself a “bear enthusiast” in Colorado last year had blossomed and grown into a full-blown bear obsession. The spectacled bear stared at her for a while, making a great moment. A bit later we realized the next exhibit had two cubs up in a tree with the mama on the ground providing other great moments. 

Anabelle fulfilled her needed bear quota…for now, and we continued through some twisty uphill paths to North American animals.
 

In the underwater viewing area for the sea lion, we learned that it’s training stick must have had a green end. This is because a kid with a soda bottle with a bright green cap was waving it around and the sea lion followed him all over the place. That kid got one of the best zoo days ever.
 
Up on the top of the tanks we continued our tiring climb after walking all over DC for a week. There was a grey seal laying out and sunning itself. Rosa quickly declared, “I want to do that.”
 
There were signs for several animals, which we didn’t see as we ascended yet another twisty path. I thought the owl and eagle were impressive looking. The long week and her bear encounter led Anabelle to reply with, “yawn.”
 

As we got higher, we could finally see some animals below us.
Beaver!!!
Ravens!!!
Otter!!!!
There was much cheering. 

We came out in no way near where we expected to. This was because we were following the map. It took a while to figure out the map was much more of a suggestion of how things were laid out, and not a technical drawing.
 
DC Flashback: When we were kids there were two moments that led a stranger to laugh so hard, they almost fell into the elephant enclosure.
A) A breeze blew right at Kim from the elephants while she was enjoying a frozen snack and she shouted, “MMMM! S*** flavored snow cone!”
B) This zoo then had a mix of African and Asian elephants. As the same smart-ass kid who could identify a zeuglodon across the room and knew the difference between mammoth and mastodon teeth, I was explaining the visible differences between elephant types. Mom asked, “Which ones do we have at home?”  My answer.
“We don’t have any at home, we live in New Jersey…

*pause while stranger next to us spits snack food into enclosure*
But the Bronx Zoo has Asian.”
 

The National Zoo only has Asian elephants now. They are in an enormous enclosure that acts as the central focal point of the zoo.
 

Nearby was the gibbon enclosure. Anabelle’s favorite primate! (Doesn’t everyone have one? And why not?) She spent a while basking in the lesser ape’s glory. When she was done, I asked if she enjoyed her gibbon moment. Her answer, “It peed.”
 

DC Flashback: There used to be a full-sized plastic triceratops outside the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. I have climbed on it many times in my youth, and one year we used the photo for our Christmas card. I kept thinking something was missing when we passed by that museum, but I couldn’t remember what.
 

In the center of the area we were in, under a tree on the side of the path was the triceratops! It had been repainted, used in a movie at some point, and moved to the zoo in 1994. No climbing on it was allowed anymore.
Alas.
 
I spent as long as I usually do complaining when seeing a triceratops mounted this way. Its back legs were straight, and its front legs were splayed. (The AMNH skeleton is still mounted this way as well, as anyone who has accompanied me there will know.) This was a “compromise” between people who insisted the lizard like pose was correct for the extinct reptiles and everyone else pointing out the body structure and tracks indicated their legs were straight. The “compromise” creates an animal with two different leg postures, which has NO OTHER INSTANCES IN NATURE!
 
Never compromise with stupid people.
 
“Oh… the pain! *dramatic swoon* I must tell my daughter about this for twenty minutes every time I am reminded of it.” - Anabelle
 
With some vague hints from the map, we found a big cat based grill location for lunch. The line was huge but went relatively fast. It was only the order line, though. Then we stood in the mob awaiting food. This was one of many signs that this zoo had issues with understanding how to move people, as the zoo itself wasn’t that crowded. Rosa ordered grilled not fried chicken to get as gluten free as possible. I ordered grilled not fried chicken to get as cardiac friendly as possible. We were both given fried chicken.
 
The very overworked and understaffed woman working the counter had our deepest sympathies. She eventually got our correct orders from the back.
 

More crowd issues reared their heads in this area. There was a huge line to get into the reptile house, therefore we skipped it. Anabelle did take the time to point to the painting of a stegosaurus over the door and ask if that was like the one I rode to school.
Charming.
There was an alligator in the pool outside the reptile house. A little girl saw it move as her family was heading to the line and yelled, “OK, I’m out!”

 
The big cat area (house?) had all kinds of construction around it, and another long line. We skipped that one too.
 
DC Flashback: Didn’t the Washington Zoo used to have white tigers? Maybe we shouldn’t have skipped that?  *Does quick online search* Not anymore. No harm, no foul.
 

The ape house also had an insane line. We did get to see the overhang where orangutans can brachiate over the crowds when travelling between inside and outside enclosures. (And presumably drop bodily fluids on them.) Sadly (or perhaps luckily) they were not in use.

 
Instead, we went on the Claws and Paws trail. We learned the bobcat is the smallest lynx. No one else cares, but since Anabelle has made fun of me for years when she called something a bobcat on a nature show when I called it a lynx and she was right, I felt some vindication.
(Not enough to balance out the mammoth karma, but some.)
 

Keepers were feeding Hank the binturong. He smelled like buttered popcorn, which we knew from our Denver Aquarium bear cat encounter. However, it was cool to experience in “the wild.” We chatted with the keeper for a bit, who seemed happy to meet some binturong fans.
 
Anabelle wanted some Dippin’ Dots. Whenever we passed them for most of her life, I would indicate how gross they were. This is because they had that chalk like, dry taste of astronaut ice cream. Anabelle let me taste hers, which were tiny little balls of regular ice cream and soooo tasty.
I have no idea what I tasted that I thought was Dippin’ Dots.
(Spoilers- No one cares.)
 
We found a lemur cage which was fun. For reasons we’re not sure of, there was also a boatload of turtles in with them.
 
Our travels were delayed by non-map related reasons for a while. We had difficulty throwing away the Dippin’ Dots bowl. Turns out the garbage can was a “push.” How about that?
 
Ready to see the highlight of this zoo, we began a trek on the Panda Trail.
We found the huge elephant enclosure again. This was the first sighting of Anabelle’s latest catch phrase, “Boo Hiss.” Originally it was for anything she didn’t like, but it has since evolved into anything she doesn’t like and disagrees with me on.
 

We finally found the right way to go, by ignoring the map. The red panda kindly decided to exit its air conditioning and make a quick appearance while we waited to be let into the giant panda exhibit area.
 
This is how I know the other animal house lines were due to poor planning. For the most popular exhibit of this zoo, where they expected large crowds, entry was controlled, yet quick and easy.
 

They had three pandas, but we only saw two out in their enclosures. Anabelle was thrilled to see them, but sad because she wanted to see all of them. Luckily a “panda-cam” filled the gap adequately.

They sat in their areas eating bamboo continuously…’cause that’s what they do.
Nothing is going to have an active lifestyle eating bamboo. It grows everywhere but has the nutritional value of sand, minus the minerals.

Coming out of the panda area we found the elephants…again. Anabelle went into a full-on rant about why their area is so big, and how come every path has to run alongside of the elephants.

Again, it had been a long week.
 
We stopped in the panda gift shop to get the last souvenirs. The line stretched the length of the store. When we got on it, the cashier said,
“uuuuuuuuuuh. The system has to reboot, it should be fine in ten…
Or fifteen minutes.”
We left, figuring surely, we’d have more luck in another store.
 
(Spoilers- HA HA!)
 
Up at the top end of the zoo was a carnivore section. There were multiple small cats sleeping in trees.
“Yawn…yawn.”
 

There was also a sloth bear. Anabelle’s bear obsession went into overdrive. In fairness, those floppy eared things are adorable. The “live action” Jungle Book really should have used one for both cuteness and accuracy reasons.

As we were about to leave, a second one came out. Anabelle shrieked, “I’m going back!!!”

While Rosa and I were watching Anabelle have bear delight moments, another set of zoo guests passed by with the following exchange.
“It looks like a bear.”
“That’s what it is.”
“I like it.”
 
As they got closer, the smell of local herbs in use was powerful enough to threaten my ability to drive home safely, explaining the conversation.
 
The newer bear was bigger, slower, and completely done with his smaller but more energetic living area partner, indicating he was likely older as well.
 
Anabelle was completely done with the couple that walked by and called them “black bears.” She let loose another rant about people not reading that made me proud.
That’s my girl.
 
On the way down we found a cheetah. I thought it was hiding behind the log in the shade. After my family explained it to me six different ways I realized, it was the log in the shade. 

It was a very “hot and tired” week.
 
We found another gift shop, picked out something for Dave and selected a collection of panda things for Morgan that they had a deal listed multiple places in the store- including the checkout desk. The guy ringing us up didn’t come up with that value.
 
The woman next to him rang up someone else with the same items with no issue.
 
In a happier zoo, the woman would have taken care of us, and life would have proceeded.
 
(Spoilers- It was not a happier zoo.)
 
No, Captain Cash Register had to try seventeen times, ignore Rosa’s suggestion (that we think the woman did) to ring up only some of the items, call for a manager a bunch of times (who never came) and blankly stare at us a while. When we finally decided to give up, he went in the back room yet again to figure out how to delete the sale from the register.
 
The woman rang us up in about ten seconds while he was gone, and we left.
 
Anabelle had been despondently waiting outside but did find a “fancy” bottle of water in a machine. This was good as it not only provided a distraction but also remembering where the machine was provided me hydration before I turned to a pile of dust.
 
We had planned on heading home but didn’t want to end on that note.
 
Coming around a turn we found…
The elephants again.
 
Anabelle said, “I’m drawing a line here- NO MORE ELEPHANTS!”
 

We did see the Mongolian wild horse exhibit with horses in it this time, as opposed to the last time we passed their area and I forgot to mention them not being there. That means we’ve seen them in all three of the major US zoos we’ve been to together.
 
There were signs literally all over the zoo advertising sloths and wallabies in the small mammal house. Therefore, we decided to brave that particular long line to see them.
 
It really was just poor crowd management. The zoo itself wasn’t crowded, and the building could have handled far more people than were in it. 

A monkey mooned me in the first room. No surprises so far.

The prehensile tailed porcupine was pretty nifty, and we saw a bettong and some other cool animals, but the constant let downs were wearing on Anabelle.

“It’s been disappointment after disappointment here. We’ll probably see an elephant next.”
In the next little glass cage were rock hyraxes. They are overstuffed gerbil looking things whose closest biological relative is…
The elephant.
“Hey! You were right!” I yelled.
She was not pleased
“Boo Hiss.”

There were too many sand cats, but they were soooooo cuuuute, making it OK.

 
We spent a little while watching the mole rat parade, and another batch of lemurs.
 

The screaming hairy armadillo had the best name in the zoo and was a cutie as well.

A couple more rooms gave us additional monkey butts, some meerkats, and an anteater in an “alternate font” than we were used to.

Anabelle was delighted to see a slow loris before we exited. As we walked out, we made a set of Instant Zoo Friends while joining another family complaining that we had now exited without seeing a single sloth or wallaby.
 
As the afternoon humidity increased, Rosa pointed out the false mammal advertising was acceptable because the small mammal house was air conditioned, and she would have happily gone back into the Hirschhorn to avoid the heat.
 
Anabelle had another gibbon moment, this one “pee free” while we figured out what to do.
 
Since we were part way there, we decided to try to overcome some of Anabelle’s disappointment by returning to the sloth bears.
 
On the way we finally found the new bird house the maps were useless in indicating the route to.
 
It was across the elephant bridge.
“Boo Hiss.”
 

There were signs all over the place about how amazing and new it was. The entire large entry areas contained pictures of birds. Then there was a little shore section with dancing horseshoe crabs.
 
Mostly it had, “More ducks than anywhere in North America.”
Anabelle’s response- “I love ducks, but this is depressing.”
 
The seabird section had three ducks and a bufflehead, which Anabelle was quick to point out,
“Also a duck.”
 
Then there was a room with songbirds in it and steps that went up…
To a locked door.
 
And that was it.
 
Anabelle returned, yet again, to full on rant mode as the lack of flamingos (featured on the signs) meant more false advertising. She exclaimed, “This is the most unenthused I’ve ever been in a zoo!”
 

We took the long route to the sloth bears around the back of the bird house and did find the flamingoes near some empty cages. 

And a bustard, some cranes, and “two-o, buo.”
(My multilingual owl pun was not appreciated.
“Boo Hiss.”)
 

We got back to the sloth bears and happiness returned. Both bears stood up impressively while we watched. Overall, there was much ursine frolicking from the pair… 

and Anabelle.

I almost made the whole vacation with my hamstrings intact, but that last walk up the big hill to the bears popped the right one. We were pretty much done walking anyway.
 
We crossed the whole north to south path of the zoo to get back to the car. On the way we had a brief reunion with the weed-soaked guy from our first time by the sloth bears.
 
Anabelle and Rosa cut the heat a little bit by passing under one of the many “misty things” the zoo provided for comfort.
 
During the section of the zoo we passed by the most frequently, I noticed beehive sculptures for the first time. I didn’t see them every other time.
Because I’m a buffoon.
 
Anabelle’s overall review “The Zoo Stunk.
But it was a fun stink.”
 
There was a tiny amount of raindrops that fell on us on the way out as we got in the car to drive home. This was not worth the gigantic amount of worry the weather forecast indicating it was going to rain on our entire zoo day led to. In fact, I was thrilled I could use my sunglasses on this day
 
In a bit of sunglass/ weather karma:
Rosa and I went to the Bronx Zoo, just the two of us, a few months later. We had a wonderful morning together. An enormous thunder, hail and rainstorm hit us in the afternoon as we were leaving. During the ensuing chaos, I dropped my sunglasses in the parking lot getting into the car without noticing.

 

We had one last presidential moment. We stopped at the Joe Biden welcome rest stop during the six feet our path took us through Delaware. Anabelle looked him up to find out why it was named after him, since he was born in Pennsylvania.
 
Turns out he lives in Delaware when he’s not in the White House. Did I mention we were tired?
 
With all the weird shirts and shoes I wear generating odd statements from people, I had a new encounter. Some kids walked into the rest stop, and one said, “I like your shorts,” as he passed.
The shorts were normal cut, black…and that is all.
 
There was no food we liked, and I certainly didn’t want to pump my own gas. I grabbed some Chex Mix to replace the power bar that melted while we were in the zoo and Anabelle had a cheese stick.
 
She spent the whole time up to there and then on the way to the first New Jersey rest stop in a self-debate about which Washington DC pictures should go in her Instagram post. Ah, the burdens of Generation Z.
 
We got to the New Jersey rest stop just as Nathan’s closed and Starbucks didn’t have Anabelle’s favorite sandwich. Burger King has ceased having grilled chicken along with every other fast-food place, because Chick Fil A’s influence on other fast-food joints, much like their policies, suck.
 
This is where Rosa packing her own gluten free snacks came in handy.
 
Her remembering there was now an Impossible Whopper saved both Anabelle and me. We shared a small onion rings with our burgers. It was Anabelle’s belief that the “Zesty” sauce made the rest of the ride “Zesty.”
 
Being excited from the trip and too tired to sleep may have had an effect as well. Everyone was awake and extra goofy on the way home. There was an occasional “Boo Hiss” whenever my music came on the radio.
 
An example of “zestiness”- A prolonged discussion about the “Hole in the Bucket” song. I maintained that in every version, Henry is told to use “a straw” to plug the hole. Believing it to be a reed or some such, I had always been puzzled on how something with a hole in it could plug the hole. Anabelle maintained that “use-a straw” is how it goes, the extra syllable added to keep the meter, and Liza is suggesting wadding a bunch of straw in the hole. I maintained that the only time they have that extra “a” is for straw and it is consistent throughout the song. Anabelle maintained that I am a fool.
 
And so forth.
 
I have a newfound respect for Dad pulling off this trip many times with at least two insane children in the car and not having a constant infusion of Mountain Dew to keep him awake.
 
The sky opened up and it poured just as we got the car in the garage. Nice!
 
The house was a tad on the frozen side, however. Since it was practically summer, we foolishly left the thermostat set to cool instead of heat. But the climate is fine, really.
 

As I emptied my pockets a fun coincidence in the change from the Dippin’ Dots appeared. One coin was a 2023 quarter with a new image of George Washington, and the back had Bessie Coleman, an African American Aviator we saw an exhibit on in the Air and Space Museum.
 
The coincidences continued as I did some social media checks before turning in.
Our trip ended on the eleventh anniversary of Anabelle’s appearance as Abigail Adams in her school “wax museum.”

Or this would have been a good coincidence, if I paid attention to what I was talking about. It was actually the anniversary of her Betsy Ross project, which would have made more sense to happen on our Philadelphia trip... oh well.
 
Sleep came instantly.
 
17901 steps
6.8 miles
 
 
Total 134,344 steps 55.2 miles.

That means we averaged 7.9 miles a day in a city where we literally walked to, through and around every location we went to except for the short drive to the zoo.

Yet in Disney World, where transportation took us to and from the parks every day, and much of our time in the parks involved sitting for rides and shows, we average 8.3 miles per day.

We have a special kind of magic with Disney.

32773 words, right between the Time Machine and The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

We are clearly not "take time off and relax" type of people.

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