Washington, D.C. - Sunday, September 25, 2016 - Smithsonian National Zoo

Today we are spending the day with Jason, Robyn and Maddie at the Smithsonian National Zoo.  The zoo itself is free, but it costs $22 to park your car!  Jason and Robyn have a membership since they come out several times a year so that cuts down on costs.  Parking is also at a premium so you need to get there early, we were running a bit later than we intended.

Greg and I have discussed our lack of wildlife/animal interactions in the years we have been on the road.  We’ve only seen 3 or 4 deer, a few squirrels and chipmunks and a couple of lizards unless we are visiting a zoo.  We do see cows when we are at David’s in Kansas but being from the Midwest we kind of take that for granted.  I know we don’t want to get up close and personal with any large animals especially as we go down the road, but you would think that we would have seen more in the length of time we have traveled.  Since we had several bird feeders in our yard before we went on the road I miss seeing all of the species of birds.  Even sitting in the woods where we are now we aren’t seeing any birds other than crows.

The landscaping at the National Zoo is amazing.

This is the main reason we came to the zoo – to see the baby panda.  He (or she, I don’t remember) was enjoying a large branch of bamboo.

Momma panda was keeping a close watch from the tree above.

I like this little guy, a red panda.

As we approached the enclosure for the Asian elephants it looked like this one was going to get in the pool.  No such luck, she was just bringing over a trunkful of hay to the side of the pool so she could enjoy her breakfast and have a drink.

This white wolf is looking like he is in disbelief at the number of humans who stand outside his enclosure and howl – I was a little amazed too.

Maddie couldn’t resist the call of the carousel.

This tiger was letting out some pretty ferocious roars, I can’t imagine the fear that would bring on if you were out in the jungle.

The lady lions were out sunning and napping after lunch.  The male lion was nowhere to be seen this afternoon.

These monkeys are investigating a snack their handler just put out in a paper bag.

Our watching the monkeys and their snacks was interrupted by the orangutans moving from one section of their enclosure to another via the overhead cables that run high above across the sidewalks.  Looks to me like an adventurous orangutan that wasn’t afraid of heights could drop down onto the sidewalk, guess it hasn’t happened yet and I was glad it didn’t happen while we were there.