national zoo and the singing zoologist

sunday morning, we headed to the metro station near here and jumped on a train into DC. The girls are old pros and slapping their metro cards on the gates, staying to the right and all the rest. As usual, we took the train to Cleveland Park instead of the zoo stop, because the walk is about the same length and not uphill. The piles of snow were still evident, though melting rapidly. It was super easy to buy our tickets for the FONZ show, and we lined right up to go into the auditorium. We scored front row seats and relaxed as the people started come in. I was impressed with how many folks came out on a Sunday morning for a show! I also felt much more at home with this eclectic crowd than I did with the Jammin’ Java crowd.

Luca Miller, the singing zoologist, put on a great show! Slides ran during the songs and narrating, which really brought the topics to life. I was quite impressed with how much Lucas could fit into an hour long show. All the kids danced and sang and answered questions and really had a great time learning about different types of animals. I’m so glad that we finally got to go to one of his shows! After the show, we stopped and talked to Lucas for a minute, and Chloe gave him a potholder too.

Chloe just loves going to the zoo. After the show, we headed down to the bottom of the zoo, but the pizza was completely covered with snow! We started to walk back up, first stopping to see the great cats. Everything that the tiger did, Chloe remarked that it was “just like Gazoo!” We found our way into the Invertebrates House for the first time; Chloe insisted on looking at each and every jellyfish, bug and crab in there. Chloe chose to also visit the small mamal house and the reptile house. I’m not a huge fan of looking at snakes, but she is. The reptile house drives me nuts because the cage windows are so far off the ground that every parent in there has to hold their small child up in order to see. I’d think that a zoo would know to be be a little more “child accessible” than that. One of the turtles had flipped onto his back in a corner and seemed absolutely unable to right himself, poor thing. We were all pretty tired from lack of sleep and so much walking, so we headed out and then down to the Woodley park station so we could head back out to the hotel.