Friday

Well, today was pretty tame...

We started out with the trip on the metro to the National Zoo. That took up about 4 hours...it is pretty spacious. We spent some time watching the pandas. The baby was sleeping, but the other two were wide awake. Then we moved on to the short clawed otters, they were extremely active, very entertaining. The baby elephant playing with the tractor tire was cute. Trav took most of the pictures here, I was just pretty much along for the walk. The big cats were pretty too, it was a bit annoying to have everyone standing there debating whether it was safe and if that cat could get out and how high the wall was, etc...my thought? if you do not think it is safe, DON'T GO!!!! Any time you are around wild animals there is the potential for disaster, that is what happens when you take a chance...so take it or stay away, but don't talk it to death or the TAME animals (humans) may cause you a problem. lol

So after a trip on the metro to find lunch, we headed back to Capital Hill to see if the museums were any good. We stopped at the visitors center at the Smithsonian Castle, very pretty. Then we went across the Mall to the Museum of Natural History. Unfortunately there were WAY too many people in there for me to fight my way thru,
so I sent Trav on in and just parked myself between two exhibits and waited for him.

Then we went on down to the American Indian Museum. That was very nice. There was live music when we arrived, and shortly after that there was a pretty good storyteller. We wandered around for a while (cool exhibit on native dress and beading) and then decided we had had enough for the day and started the walk back to the hotel. I don't think we even walked 8 miles today, nothing like the day before...lol.

We stopped at the hotel long enough to dump our stuff then headed out to dinner at the local Irish Pub, The Dubliner. Trav had the Shepherds Pie and I chose the corn beef and cabbage. Both were excellent. We did, of course, lift a pint of Guinness - had to ya know. And we had Bread pudding in irish cream sauce for dessert. (Trav is not a big fan of bread pudding, but liked this so much that when we got back to the hotel he googled it to find the recipe...pretty involved, but well worth it.)

Then he gets the munchies again...so off we go to find him something...it's not yet 9 pm, so we don't think that it will be difficult, it IS Friday, after all. So he calls down to the desk to see if the Starbucks across the street is open, they say yes, so we grab the umbrella (did I tell you it started raining about 20 minutes after we returned from dinner?) and took off. Well, it seems the front desk was wrong...Starbucks closes at 7! And there isn't another eatery or store for at least 4 blocks....in the rain, at about 40 degrees and a bit windy....nope, no way, not a chance...so back to the hotel and their little shop for some packaged snacks. A stop at the desk for extra coffee pods for me and then up to our room. Whew, that was another long day...but we made it to the places we planned, and back to the hotel, all safe and sound. That makes it a very good day. See ya tomorrow when the trek to the airport gets underway.