Smithsonian: revisited

DC Day Two:
Smithsonian Zoo (for the second year in a row, it was a pleasant 40 degrees above zero), with lions, tigers, panda bears (oh my!), ephelumps, woozels, no hippos due to renovation of the pachiderm house, monkeys, snakes, alligators, turtles, geckos, birds, and lots of statues of dinosaurs. If you ever get a chance to go to the Smithsonian Zoo (AKA the National Zoo), do it. It's the best zoo we've been to. One highlight which I didn't see (I was busy photographing the giant male gorilla named "Baraka") was when Stasia and Luke saw an Orangutang pee off a tree.
They had a great reptile house with huge poisonous snakes, including anacondas, cobras, boas, rattlesnakes, kings, and water moccasins (and more). The water moccasins will be mentioned later.

We also went to the Nat'l Air & Space Museum, where Luke got to go inside a space shuttle and an air plane. We also got to see some big big airplanes (how's that for a scholastic adjective?).

We breezed through the American Indian Smithsonian while the kids slept, and returned to the Museum of Natural History again. Luke wanted to see HIS elephant (the elephant statue in the foyer). He ran around in the dinosaur exhibit, then we went upstairs to the gem and mineral exhibit so that Luke could play with a giant rock magnet (it's a rock that is a magnet for small things like paper clips). Luke played with it for over 20 minutes. I think we spent about 90 minutes in the museum of natural history today (after 2 hours in it yesterday), and I think Mary spent 85 minutes in the gift shop. :) Apparently, there was a telescope that she wanted to play with in the gift shop.

After a long day out and about the district, we finally returned to the hotel and ordered dinner.
First, we drove around the Marine Memorial (Iwo Jima flag-raising) a couple times because it is only a mile from our hotel. It was neat to see the visual illusion of the flag raising as we drove around it.

After dinner we tried to take the kids swimming in the indoor pool. Now let me preface this: we are staying at a Best Western. The last Best Western we stayed in had an indoor pool and had room access from inside. This one here is like a motel in that we get to our 2nd story room from the outside hall. Now the pool is inside, but after walking through the parking lot in 30 degree weather, we were disappointed to find that the pool is indoors but the room is not heated. The pool water is barely heated, so that means it was warmer than it would have been naturally, but not warm like a jacuzzi to keep the kids warm. Anastasia and Mary got in with Hannah and Luke, but after 1 minute the kids were both shivering. Oh, and there was a lifeguard/towel boy who was working there, and he was sitting next to a heater! Should've been the first clue. So when the kids shivered, Stasia got out, we wrapped up the kids, and ran back to the run across the parking lot. Mary swam for a little longer, but got out after thinking about the water moccasins that we saw earlier at the zoo. Needless to say, the human imagination got the best of her and forced her back to the room with alacrity.

Back at the room, we gave the kids a real bath to warm them up. Then we made some hot chocolate that Luke enjoyed spilling on an hotel towel.

Tomorrow we hope to go to St. Nicholas OCA Cathedral, and hopefully will see Met. JONAH. Then we head home so that we can pack our bags and head to Alaska on Tuesday.

--Matthew

PS: Stasia was signed in when I started this post, so even though her name appears below, I authored the narrative.