The National Zoo

Den had a meeting at the Pentagon first thing Monday morning, so we all took advantage of the free hotel room and drove up Sunday morning. The girls have been dying to go to the National Zoo, so we took the Metro on over.

This pretty much sums up our day at the zoo. A huge line of angry red radar blobs spent the majority of the afternoon marching its way through Washington DC.

We managed to squeeze in a few of the outdoor habitats before the rain started. This is a statue of the Sloth Bear that was being, well, sloth-like and I couldn't get a good picture.

This is a Fisher Cat. I had never ever heard of a fisher cat before, but the name IS pretty self-explanatory. They are cats... who fish. Check them out in action here.At this point the panda bears were nowhere to be seen, so we had to settle for this one.

We never did find an actual anteater

Shortly after the tasty snowcones above, the heavens opened up and we very quickly sought shelter in the Ape, Small Mammal, Reptile, and Invertebrate Houses.
Hee hee. Gorilla Yoga

This is an anaconda. If you think he is big, you should have seen his pond mate. I am pretty sure that it must have eaten the anteater and that's why we couldn't find it.
Hands down the fattest iguana I have ever seen
I seem to have a strange fascination with Komodo Dragons. To me they are the great big poisonous labrador retrievers of the reptile kingdom.

Excuse me madam, but your squishy parts are showing.Who doesn't love a good giant octopus?
I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new camera!

We finally got a break in the rain and decided that we had better start the hike back to the metro station. We ran across this photo op along the way.

As we were heading back through the park, we ran across a small hidden sign that said Indoor Panda Viewing and low and behold, look who we found! One last shot before we headed for the train
This is not actually from the Zoo. It is from a random rest stop between here and there. Don't you just LOVE it?