We decided on Friday night after work that we needed another DC adventure before our schedule
gets hectic over the coming months. We have plans every weekend between festivals, college foot-
ball tickets, and trips planned. We caught the Metro and headed to the Smithsonian National Zoo.
Will was excited, but didn't quite get what a Zoo was. He was excited about seeing elephants,
tigers, monkey's, and zebras. We saw a few of these, but didn't make it to quite a bit of the
Park. We will have to go back again sometime to finish up the areas that we didn't see and re-
attempt to see some of the animals that didn't come out of hiding. While there we saw the Clouded
Leopard, the North American River Otter (asleep upside down under a log), a Giant Panda (only the
back side before it went into hiding *), Grevy's Zebras (peeing, attempting to mate, and eating
together), Dama Gazelle's, Abyssinian Ground Hornbill's, a Wood Duck, Flamingos, a Blue-billed
Curassow, a King Vulture, a White-naped Crane, a Kori Bustard, a Red-legged Seriema, a White
Stork, an Asian Elephant, and a Gorilla.
Will fell asleep right after seeing the Gorilla's, so we left and walked through Rock Creek Park
over to Adam's Morgan to get lunch. We ended up at Mellow Mushroom enjoying pizza and a few
cold beers while Will finished up his nap.
*We don't know if the Panda we saw was Mei Xiang. We didn't even know that she was pregnant, but
we were there less than a week before she gave birth to the most recent Panda cub. I have read
somewhere that she may have been enclosed somewhere at the time during the final stages of her
gestation period!
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