National Zoo

Of all of the free things in DC to do,
Our number one vote is the National...

If I was really cool I would keep the rhyme going. Instead, here are some pictures from our fun visit!

They have quite a few demonstrations throughout the day. I'm not sure what it's like during spring and summer, but we had a lot of fun watching the elephants eat and we were able to ask one of the zookeepers lots of questions. Did you know... that an elephant's trunk has at least 40,000 individual muscles in it? African elephants have two fingerlike projections at the end of their trunk and Asian elephants have one. According to the zookeeper, elephants fall in line after dolphins as far as intelligence rankings go.

This is me standing under the Orangutan Transport System, or "O Line". The orangutans have a system of cables and towers that allows them to travel 500 ft back and forth between their home and the "Think Tank" exhibit. The orangutans are allowed to travel at will between 10 am and 2 pm... right over the heads of the zoo visitors! Six of the eight towers have wide wire skirts charged with enough electricity to deter the orangutans from climbing down. It's really fun to watch the orangutans go back and forth and hang right above you.

We found this Panda at a nearby Marriott. I think the pandas have been a big attraction in DC (the metro cards have a panda printed on them) and one of the Zoo's pandas will be going home to China soon so we're glad we made a trip to see him even if it was a little cold!