Epic East Coast - Day 13

Late last night we decided to cancel our end of the week Capital Hill tour, since there have been two security lockdowns in the past five days, and I wasn't too interested in experiencing that with all of my kids.  Today was our zoo day, and we had fun, even though it wasn't the best zoo we have ever been in.   Lots of the animals weren't there and most of the others were fairly inactive, probably due to the oppressive humidity.

We started the day by heading south to a metro station, buying cards for almost everyone, as only Bradley rides free, and then trying to get everyone through the card swipe area.  Bradley threw a fit because he didn't have a card and cried for the first train ride.  We had to switch lines to get to the zoo, which was a bit confusing as I took the elevator with stroller, while Sandra and the boys took the escalators, and I arrived on the opposite side of the tracks from where I left them.  We eventually found each other and got to the zoo.

We immediately headed towards the giant pandas to try and avoid any rush.  One was sleeping in a tree and a bit difficult to see, while one was sleeping inside.  As rare as they are in North America, I don't think the kids really cared.  The highlight for me was the tiger, as it was actually walking around in its pen, and I kind of like tigers.  I think the highlight for the kids was the sealion pond, where you could look underwater and watch them swim around, though they also enjoyed the carousel - their third one this trip.  Inside a display on the Amazon, we found some turtles for Jonathan, though we also found some salamanders, which for some reason he finds extremely terrifying.  I personally thought the salamander looked kind of cool, as did all the brightly coloured poisonous frogs.  Despite not knowing where he was, we managed to find the Uncle Beazley statue and took a picture of it with the kids for Nana.

The zoo is built on a hill, and we took an extra metro stop so that we would be at the top of the hill to start.  I figured the other metro stop would be at the bottom of the hill, which it is, but the only pedestrian exit is at the top of the hill.  That meant we had to take an extremely hot hike up the hill to get out after our visit, though we stopped in the air conditioned visitor centre for awhile in order to cool down.  We hit the metro home at 5:00pm, so some of the trains were super full, but we somehow managed to find our way through the people and arrive back at the condo.