Beautiful Sunday at the Zoo!!!

So, the weatherman said today would be nice, high of 70 and then a cold front coming in on Monday with a high of 50 degrees...so we decided to go to the Zoo. Another FREE outing, no admission, just the cost of the Metro ride and a few blocks of walking from the station.

We saw LOTS of animals and we did get Mom another wheelchair because of all the ground we needed to cover. BOY, it is really hard to push a wheelchair uphill!!! Betty and I got a real upper and lower body workout today.

We did see the pandas today and one of the treats that they get is a plastic milk crate that has honey slathered all over it, so it's a treat and something to play with too.

All weekend long was the Zoo's "Boo at the Zoo" event, so they had a bunch of Halloween decorations. Here's a Chinese scarecrow at the panda exhibit. A black kitty snoozing in a tent. A skeleton wedding.

We pretty much saw a lot of different animals from all over. Tigers, gorillas, lots of different birds and prairie dogs too! Here is the Capybera, it's like a BIG rat.

And Betty was taking pictures of all the Invertebrates and came up to the spider exhibit and was really close until I said, "Hey, there's NO GLASS on this one." So, essentially, Betty was INCHES away from a whole MESS OF LARGE SPIDERS. That really freaked her out!!!

There were also a bunch of HUGE lobsters, prawns, crabs in the aquariums!

There was a monkey that was sitting near the window and kept "smiling" randomly at us as we were walking by...as if smiling for a picture.
The orangutans also climb up this 45 feet tall tower between 11am-11:30AM every day. We missed it, but the towers are on either side of the walkway and are connected with a rope that the orangutans swing on. Crazy!

Here's a funny picture of one of the orangutans inside. It covered it's head with a blanket as it sat next to a mini-waterfall.

We saw two bald eagles and a bunch of other birds (flamingoes!). Mom really liked this bird (above) because of all of the colors on its neck.

Then, since we had to transfer to another line on the way home in Chinatown, guess where we had an early dinner? The waitress spoke Mandarin and was laughing since Betty and I only spoke Cantonese. Then we all laughed some more when the Cantonese waitress came by to explain some dishes and we STILL didn't understand! It was a different dialect of Cantonese. We ordered a steamed Cod fish and it came on a platter with some Sterno underneath it, so it was bubbling hot when we got it. Mmmm...

Oh, and this is how they explain that you are in Chinatown, they just translate the restaurants into Chinese characters.

Then, we hit the grocery store to load up on more breakfast and lunch items so we don't have to go full meals each time and either have a early dinner or late lunch as our big meal of the day.

Oh, and we found another SUPER powered hand dryer in one of the bathrooms at the zoo. This time Betty took a video of it.

Later!

Sharon, Betty & Mom