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BlueTyke
  - Joined on 07-29-2008
- Middle River
- Lots of different things.
- Posts 99
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10-05-08 Birthday Adventure
My Birthday celebration started on Friday with the surprise of Breakfast at work. Yummy donuts and bagels with cream cheese! It was delicious! I even got a sign wishing me a blast for the weekend! I of course complied completely with this sign. Can you say I have some rockin co-workers? I do! Saturday I woke around my normal time and headed out for a motorcycle ride. ( you can read about that here if you haven’t already http://www.bikerworlds.com/LilTyke/view_blog/6704/ ) The day turns to night as it always does but for certain special people it rolls from someone else’s birthday to their own. I am by no means under the delusion that I am a singular figure on my birthday. I share my day with no less than 3 known family members so I know there are many that celebrate October 5th as their own. From a rumor I heard I discovered that it is the most popular American birthday, all due to New Years Eve. I always thought it was because of Valentines day but alas pregnancy is still a mystery to me… Anyway what a day! What a fantastic day!!! For more reasons that it was my Birthday! 28 years and still growing! Not to much physically anyway, except round, but that my friends is another story… The day broke and long since been greeted by many people before I even considered getting out of bed. 9am… Haha for those that really truly know me this is not a luxury, unless a ride is involved I do not even bat an eye until after 10am. Either way both Phil and I enjoyed staying in bed and waking up slowly but soon it was time to get on our way! So tumble from bed, into some clean clothes… I think… and scarf some breakfast down (Thanks to work! I had enough breakfast foods from my birthday celebration at work to tide me over for the weekend!), and off we go in my car for adventuring in Washington D.C! Next time Phil wants to take the bikes. Perhaps we would have better luck… More on that later. I have no idea where in D.C. we are going and Phil soon confiscated my Garmin (Zumo). He is holding adamantly to not letting me know at first. He does a good job as I busy myself with a whole lot of nothing! I do know one thing. This date is going to be cheap. I don’t mind of course because it is rare that Phil and I get out on our own and I know that both Phil and I are tightening our financial belts a few notches… perhaps more than a few. So I know we are going some place free or with a minimal entrance fee. To my surprise our first stop is the Smithsonian Zoological Park (http://nationalzoo.si.edu/default.cfm ) in Rock Creek Park!! It was a fantastic idea and entrance to the park is free!! Even better! That is until we discover they charge you for everything else!! Parking was far from free but we decided what the heck (To give you an idea 1 hour is $10, 2 – 3 hours is $15, and anything 3 hours or more is $20! If you lost your ticket it’s $30!) Wow. Anyway we park and figure we are going for the long hall and $10 a person really isn’t bad and proceeds go towards the zoo anyway. Can’t go wrong there. So we head up… A map of the zoo: http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Visit/ZooMap/ so you can follow along if you would like. We parked in parking lot D. ( A side note to apologize for the following pictures. As in a previous Sunny & Tyke adventure [http://www.bikerworlds.com/LilTyke/view_blog/6656/ ] my camera had been broken. And it would not be repaired in time so I had to settle for the camera on my phone…. ) Giant clock: That was pretty neat to see and the place seemed pretty busy with all kinds of foot traffic. Families out for a Sunday adventure, joggers, walkers, and then us.. Celebrants! The first critters to see are Prairie dogs!
  Funny little creatures. The neat thing is they weren’t behind any glass or cages nope a cement barrier was all that was keeping these critters in. A little ways off of course was something that would have had the Prairie Dogs and even me running and hiding (should they have gotten loose that is) Lions!! Roar!
 Can you see her? She is on the top teer of the landscape… Sorry. It is going to be like “where’s that Animal?” instead of “Where’s Waldo?” with these photos How about I make it up to you?? Tiger anyone?
 This one was quiet cute as it spied something on the wall. A chipmunk!! It kept pace with that little critter and kept wanting to go and get it but there was a moat of water between it and the chipmunk. It was so funny! I think the chipmunk did that on purpose!     Coming out we were greeted with a waterfall that played home to many turtles   Lemurs  Maybe a little better picture of a group of Lemurs We headed off to the Think Tank and ventured through there. There wasn’t much to see as most of the Monkey’s and Chimps were hiding away from where we could see them we still looked. Wandered back behind the Invertebrate area… Saw a Komodo Dragon!  He’s a big one that one! Went inside the Invertebrate building and saw many fascinating critters…  A shrimp guarding his hole Hehe this tank is open on both sides and while Phil peered in at the Stone Crab inside I snapped this picture. I don’t think it is that bad considering…  The stone crab by himself… or herself.. The Great Land Crab
 A Giant Hermit Crab Spiny Lobster Phil and the Spiny Lobster
Giant Shrimp Slipper Lobster When you left the Invertebrate’s area it took you into a green house with lots of plants and butterflies. I was happy with this as I love to see butterflies and even have gotten pictures of a few of them at other times so it was neat to see them and… possibly, maybe, get a picture again!  This is another Where is that Animal picture… Did you see it? The butterfly? It is in the picture I swear. There was a guy that was going to walk but saw it land and froze so I could artfully take this picture. He was excited as I was to see it… Find it? I hope so. Look very carefully at the red in the center of the picture. It is a flower. The black parts though that is the butterfly. Neat huh!? Back to some reptiles! Alligators… Or crocs I can’t remember which! We did move along and wandered over to the Ape area. I didn’t get to many pictures there as my camera sucked. And I ended up deleting a lot of them but for the one that worked out…      Giant Anteater statue Another Golden Lion Tamarin  A bird… At the time I took the picture I was sure I would remember what it was but for the life of me… I can’t seem to remember! Sad I know! In my defense we did see a lot of neat creatures and awesome animals it was hard to keep track of them all. We entered into the small mammals area and explored.   Again another unknown bird but it was purdy! (As I look at the website I see that it is in fact a Golden-Breasted Starling)  A Sleeping Meerkat, the only way to get them to sit still… Pygmy Marmoset A mouse breed of some sort Another Tree Shrew We moved out of the small mammals and decided to check out what was next on our path. It so happened to be large mammals in the form of Elephants
 Hippos
 Hippo skull Sleepy Pygmy Hippos  Continuing on we came across the Asian themed area and a Red Panda Sleeping Panda Because I didn’t get a good pictures the Panda Post Card is one of the ones I picked up at the gift shop… Resting Cloud Leopard Again I picked up a postcard this time of the Cloud Leopard Phil looking at an exhibit The exhibit is for a Sloth Bear and the migration patterns of other animals. Amazingly enough for a Sloth bear (though they have no family relation to the Sloth) it would not sit still for me to take a picture so I got a post card instead We had to take a pit stop so that certain bodily functions could be addressed and I looked up and saw this…  O.o Just a little Light Bathroom Reading…. After that stop we headed towards one of the entrances. As there is no smoking on the grounds, it being a national park and all, Phil needed that kind of break. And besides there is a Seven Eleven across the street from the main entrance were we could get some grub. (No photos of that it was just corn dogs and a slurpee) The entrance though… A lion on both sides Scimitar-horned Onyx  An Emu checks out one of the many squirrels in his pin. Grevy’s Zebras They had this scale there. If you stood on it a weight would appear and you could then link it to what a Cheetah would think of you… Now as I am a woman it is not nice to ask what it said but I will give you the range Hehehe Phil was the one below mine… We did find the Cheetah but she was to far away to actually get a picture of and she blended in very well so I didn’t even try at this point. So we moved on to the Bird House and the Flight Exhibit!
A very colorful Pheasant Pigeon A Pygmy Falcon A bright bird – Green (though he looks blue to me!) Magpie A huge bird Another Pheasant Pigeon A Desert Burrowing Owl This young male was fanning his feathers. He is a Raggiana Bird-of-Paradise The Keel-billed Toucan having a good time of some fruit in a critter carrier Western Crowned Pigeon was a show off. The exhibit has a room you can go in that is open, meaning the birds fly around freely inside. This one being different than the Flight Exhibit as it holds different birds. But this one bird really was wanting to get his picture taken as he worked on his nest but then would always move so the picture would come out blurry. On my pass through the upper story I could see why. This one was already nested  From the indoor bird exhibit we went to the Great Flight exhibit which has ‘free’ roaming birds inside. It has a ‘net’ that keeps them in so they do get a lot of fresh air. A peacock sitting down A peacock grooming Sunning… Mandarin Ducks (Phil was excited about these because he saw them when we first entered but they don’t look like normal ducks to me but when we saw the signs it was ‘see told you it was a duck’. Yeah yeah) This bird was showing off. I couldn’t tell you which one it was as it was hard to see to begin with (though if I had to venture a guess I would say it was a Blue Heron)  Stork (Look at the triangle the building makes) On our way back through, as the other entrance was closed for construction the sitting peacock from before stood up Double Wattled-Cassowary  I am telling you folks this place has the weirdest lawn ornaments Even their flowers looked funny (Hehehe, one leg, one stem, get it??) Scarlet Ibis looks like a close cousin to the Flamingo, can’t pick him out in the greenery can you? Red-Crowned Crane Marabou Stork  This one had a sign hanging outside saying it was very aggressive - Wattled-Crane This owl is actually missing one eye but due to the bars you cant even see that (We will leave the camera out of this one just this once) So we discovered on our way back down to the Sea Lions that we had missed the building part for the Great Apes and decided to take a look see.. And saw More Gorillas
 An Orangutan who wanted to hide
 We also discovered that we missed the Invertebrate Building, though I could have sworn it said Reptile discovery… But the map says Invertebrates.. Ah well either way… There were a lot of reptiles inside, frogs, snakes, turtles, tortoises etc… The really bad thing about this is that it was REALY hot inside with all the light and people. I was also running out of room on my camera and I had much more to cover!! Noooo so I didn’t take to many pictures.. But I did get evidence of being there!
Lazy Giant Tortoise!
 This one was on the move! These things were HUGE I mean seriously so! (I will have you no there is no zoom on my camera that would allow these creatures to be that large!) We finally complete our mission! Well at least one of them. Bathroom break! And for once I, the woman, finished first! There might have been a line on the guys side, I didn’t ask. I did take this cute picture though. It’s a statue called Tumbling Bears
 Phil finally comes out and we head off again to find us some Sea Lions. These creatures are nothing new to us having been in San Francisco several times. Phil didn’t even want to take one home. He said these ones were to lazy! These ones were certainly more quiet than the ones in SF. I didn’t get any good pictures of them, just wanted to tell you about them. The next bit was kind of disappointing as a lot of the animals were not in their exhibits. I am not sure why as they didn’t say the signs were all there saying they should be but there were none, no wolves, beavers, or otters! Luckily though the Bald Eagles were in residence! Majestic creatures, if only you could see them…  This one is a little better but… not much…  The Bears were not in residence and so we moved on to the Amazonian area and discovered that Amazon is another word for GIANT (I don’t believe this is factually true but…well the following is evidence for it… ) Yes folks those are fish. And as we have already discussed there is no uber zoom on my camera!! These things were HUGE! GIAGANTICALY HUGE! Take for example the blob fish with the pink tail, you see it? That is a red-tailed catfish! And their buddies the slender, yet long fish are Arapaima “These large fish can reach up to 9 feet in length and weigh 300 pounds. They feed on smaller fish, reptiles, and insects. Arapaimas have great vision, and hunt near the surface of the water. If they see something desirable out of the water, they can shoot out and grab it.” (Quoted from the Zoo’s website)  That that is an Arapaima This fish was huge too to get them to come closer to the glass they have set up these ‘treats’ and the fish come closer to eat them There is an upper floor where you can look at the rising foliage as well as come face to face with some monkeys, birds, and a few insects. One of the monkeys, I think it is yet another Golden Lion Taramin Fishing anyone? That was the end of the Zoo trip. We headed back out to the car all the more excited for having been. We figured we entered the Zoo about 11:15am and left about 4pm. That is a good deal of time and we both had a great time. Yet… My day was not to be over yet! To DC we go! Further in he says! Let us see some history! Always game I go along… That and he is driving. Washington Monument from afar… A little closer Still a little closer, can you feel my excitement? Alas we did not stop. It became clear as we rounded the side of the monument that there would be no parking. Not only were there soccer games going on in the field there was a festival or concert of some sort going on at the other. Parking was not an option. This of course would have been made easier if we were on the bikes but I am alright with this as there is still much more to see and I can at least say I saw it in person. Looking around I saw several places already that I wanted to see. There were buildings and bridges. One we saw was columned and domed, a large flag… Hey! It’s the White House!! Awesome! I wanna see that too!! We circle round and round and pass yet another domed building but this one is on the Potomac (I know it to be this from my route planning for a ride). I didn’t know what it was at the time but I now know it is the Jefferson Memorial. So wanna go there too! We also past the World War II Memorial, which looks spectacular up close but, again didn’t stop. We sought out parking near any monument really just to get out and see. Luckily enough we came across a spot that called our name. We had landed ourselves near the Lincoln Memorial and thus The Wall. We both looked up our family names to see if there were any. It is really neat that they have a listing there and where to find the names on the wall so people can go see them. There are no Wesling’s on the wall. I forgot to look for Duke, perhaps next time. Phil’s family name had no takers either. It was still awe inspiring to go down along this path and see the names. Awe inspiring and saddening too. It reminded me of Gettysburg. The great vast space filled with nameless lives but here… Here was a confined space with countless names.  It was a quiet walk from there to the Lincoln Memorial. Oh how I wish I had my real camera. Then, and that is with a maybe, these pictures would do justice to what I saw. The big guy:
 Phil against a column reading the inset speech Me and the Big Guy As we were leaving the sun was setting and it was magnificent! Look!  What a great picture to part on! A wonderful site! I have to go back! Go back and take more pictures! I did pick up some postcards and an info pamphlet at the memorial and later at work I scanned them inPost Card 1 Post Card 2 Pamphlet Side 1 Pamphlet Side 2 From there we headed back home. Settling on a local Dinner to eat at, Double T’s the food and service was fantastic. Do you wanna see my birthday cake? Of course you do! A chocolate mouse cake (moose)  And it was every bit as yummy as the actual cake. The ‘filling’ of the mouse was the moose and it was great! Heading home after such a great day was hard but we did it. Settled in and fell asleep. Awesome, awesome day… What more could a girl want? Spent countless memorable moments with someone I love, got to learn about some fascinating animals, history, and all for under $60, Rachel Ray, eat your heart out. Hehe!
So slow I think Im first!
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