More About The Zoo and Mount Vernon Too

Well, I'm back home in Alabama, but I have some catching up to do on the blog as I need to finish the tale of our DC vacation.

After our late night at the hockey game, we opted for a late morning on Thursday. We had breakfast at the condo before heading out to the city. Our first stop of the day was the National Zoo which is operated by the Smithsonian and therefore, free! We spent almost six hours there walking around and looking at the animals. It was a cold day and so not all the animals were out and about. I assume some of them opted to stay inside instead of braving the cold.

There were elephants, orangutans, lions and cheetahs, seals and sea lions, reptiles, birds, the list goes on and on. I think the most interesting part for me was a demonstration and lesson about orangutans in the think tank center. At the National Zoo, the orangutans have a set of cables that they will swing on to get from the ape house to the think tank where researchers study them. They are free to go back and forth as they choose and I found that to be very interesting and a nice way to give the animals some freedom.

When we finished up at the zoo, we went to Ford's Theater, but unfortunately it was sold out and there was a line that seemed like it was a mile long. I don't know if I mentioned it, but there were so many children and people in DC while we were there. It must have been spring break for a lot of kids in the country because everywhere we went, it was packed.

Since we couldn't get into Ford's Theater, we headed to the Tidal Basin to check on the progress of the Cherry Blossoms and take some photos. The blossoms had finally bloomed and they were so beautiful. I just realized I already mentioned the zoo and the cherry blossoms, but since I've written all of this, I'm just going to leave it. I guess it's been so long since I've written I've forgotten what I've written about! So sorry, y'all!

Friday we went to Mount Vernon. We got there a little before noon and our tour was scheduled to start at noon. The weather apps said it was going to be in the high 70s so we wore shorts and y'all, it was freezing! I don't think it got about 50 that day. Other than freezing, the trip was very enjoyable and probably one of my favorite things about our trip. There is so much to see on the estate and they have built a museum and an interactive area that has a lot of short films about George Washington. We spent about five hours there which ended up being perfect because we had dinner reservations at the Mount Vernon Inn at 5:00 p.m.

The dinner was good and the atmosphere was also nice. We had eaten there for lunch when I was a kid and I was glad we were able to do that again. After dinner, we caught the bus back to the metro station and then headed to the condo for out last night in the DC area.