A trip to the zoo!

Yesterday, we gathered ourselves and drove down to the Smithsonian National Zoo.  We left just after 9 am, so traffic wasn't too bad.  It took us just over an hour.

Joseph is the picture taker in the family.  He didn't waste any time.  You meet this triceratops very quickly entering the park, and we needed a picture.  (It's not everyday one meets a triceratops).  I don't know what Ethan is looking at off camera.

The weather forecast called for a partly cloudy sky and little humidity.  They got that wrong.  The humidity was stifling and the sun was full on bright.



Joseph got some really good pictures of the lions, especially of this young one frolicking in the pool that surrounded their habitat.  There were four lions altogether.

 

 

 

There is a female lion in the foreground and a male lion against the wall, though it's difficult to see him since he blends into the concrete wall and the spotlight of sun.  Joseph didn't get a picture of the fourth lion.

A tiger looking regal.  

 


Both boys emerging from the water misters.  Believe me, it felt so good on such a humid day.

When we emerge from the Small Mammal House, we saw this:

 

Those are two orangoutangs walking on those ropes above the trees.  There are platforms at strategically placed intervals for the orangoutangs to climb on before moving along the ropes to the next platform.  They can access the platforms and ropes from their habitat.  What isn't pictured is the way both the orangoutangs helped each other.  One of the orangoutangs reached a platform first, he (maybe it was a she?) reached behind him to help the other one get onto the platform!

We were at the right place at the right time to catch this.

 

Here is another orangoutang inside her habitat.  She is playing with pooh in case you are wondering what she is doing.  That's the back of Ethan's head.  Like most of the kids surrounding him, they were enraptured with the pooh playing orangoutang.

In the same building, there were gorillas, although they were in a different room.  The gorillas were being fed by the zoo keepers.  One male ate very quickly, gobbling down banana slices one after the other.  I guess he was afraid someone was going to steal it.  Another male gorilla took his meal up to the tallest part of a tree and gobbled it down.  He seemed quite particular about not sharing it with the other gorillas.

By the time we got to the cheetahs, it was mid afternoon.  The sun was sweltering.  The humidity oppressive.  The cheetahs were sprawled on the grass of their habitat, napping in the shade.  Then, one gets up and trots over to the shade in another part of the habitat (pictured below).  Two others follow that cheetah.  Their bodies are so sleek and slender.  Did you know that a cheetah's stride is 23 feet when running at top speed during a hunt?  Yes, 23 feet!  (I know, right?)  

We tried following the cheetahs, moving along to another side of the habitat.  By the time we got there, however, the cheetahs were hiding in either tall grass or a den.  We weren't sure which.    But, we were still in for a nice treat.  In the next habitat over was another cheetah by himself (or herself?) pacing around.  Joseph caught it on video, although I'm having difficulty uploading the video to this blog.  (I'll try posting it to FB instead).  

A elephant house and the surrounding habitat was under re-construction.  We got a glimpse of one elephant hanging out amidst the construction.  No giraffes.  No rhinos.  No ostriches.  Not sure if those savannah animals were displaced during construction or what.  

We saw two giant pandas, one male and one female, in different rooms.  Both of the pandas sat with their backs to us gawking humans, noshing on bamboo.  

We skipped the bird house.  By this time it was late afternoon.  The heat was sweltering.  All of us were tired.  The boys were perilously close to a temper meltdown, so we decided to leave.  

Elias's favorite thing about the zoo was everything!  Ethan's favorite thing at the zoo?  Nothing!  I think he inherited the contrarian attitude from his mother.  

We had a good day all in all.  We'd like to return to the zoo once the construction is complete.  And I have a new family rule: no zoo visiting during the summer. It's just too darn hot.   I'd like to go back in the fall instead.