Day 2 in Washington DC 11/16/14

Today we ventured to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. From Union Station it is fairly easy to get there as you take the red line on the Metrorail to the Woodley Park/Zoo/Adams Morgan stop. The walk was longer than expected to the zoo but not too bad.

What is great about the zoo is like other Smithsonian museums, it is also free! The Zoo is fairly big so we were unable to see everything but we did see all of the animals we were hoping to see. The animal I most wanted to see were the pandas. They were along the Asia Trail which was the first area we came across.

The Asia Trail had these kiosks that had binoculars that you looked into with slides inside that had little facts/stories that my 5 year old liked to look at.

After seeing some otters, we went down to the Panda Habitat to check out the Giant Pandas.

The Pandas are my favorite because they are so cute and they seem pretty playful.

After the pandas, we headed across this bridge because my 3 year old wanted to go across it. He likes bridges. :p The bird house was on the other side, but no one was interested, so we looked at the map and horses was the next animal of choice. So we crossed back over the bridge in search of horses.

We headed towards the horses and on the way saw some elephants.

We went inside their habitat and the kids enjoyed pulling the tabs to see some interesting facts about the animals.

We saw the horses (didn't get a pic) but afterwards headed inside the small Mammal house. This was pretty neat because there were shrews, tamarins, sloths,a porcupine, and even skunks. They had these little guys but I forget their name. Aren't they cute?

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All throughout the zoo my kids climbed every rock they saw and even ran all along this bench. :p

The last animals we saw were the big cats. We saw both the tigers and lions. Then we called it a day.

The kiddos had a great time checking out the animals. I really enjoyed this Zoo. I would definitely come back if we are in the area again. The zoo is really well maintained and the zoo keepers are friendly. A definite must see if you love animals.

What are your favorite animals to see at the zoo?