Washington D.C. Day: 2, the reason why we went to D.C in the first place

Day 2 started with a trip to Arlington cemetery

 This is the changing of the guard. It was really neat to watch.

 PANDAS

The reason why we even went to Washington D.C. - To see Panda Bears! 

Boyd and I are zoo junkies. We love the zoo. I don't know why, but we do. 

We both love pandas. D.C. has pandas. So we went. 

We were lucky enough to catch them during feeding time. 

I love the way they chomp their bamboo. 

They look so fuzzy and plush.

Everything about them screams "I'm cute!"

 (until the zoo keeper tells you that they really aren't soft and fluffy and that they will attack you and bite your head off if you get near them.) What ever lady, I still think they are adorable.

  

I have never seen such active animals in a zoo before. They were a lot of fun to watch. 

In fact, we probably spent an hour and a half (literally) just staring at them. 

 

I asked Boyd to turn around so I could take a picture of him 

and that is when he saw the sign about the baby panda that just died recently. Sad.

I have a new found respect for pandas. 

I have always liked them in the past but this trip made me like them even more. 

We found out that panda bears can only get pregnant one time a year. Most of the time they are unsuccessful in even getting pregnant. I think my bond with pandas became even stronger because I can relate to them. Especially the part when I learned about their breeding program and how the pandas have to get an IUI to try to have babies, just like me. Maybe I was just being hormonal that day, but I think the panda bear might be my new favorite animal. 

Air and Space Museum

So much fun! If you ever get the chance to go to D.C., definitely go here. 

 The actual Wright Brothers flying contraption. 

I think that is what I enjoyed most about Washington D.C., that the articles in the museum were the original objects, not replicas, not molds, not "this is what it would have been like." It made what ever you were looking at that much cooler.  

 Cute story: 

Charles Lindbergh, who flew the Spirit of St. Louis on the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris, had a wife named Anne Morrow Lindbergh. She decided that she wanted to spend more time with her husband, so she taught herself how to navigate, became the first American woman to earn a first class glider pilot's license, and learned morse code. How neat is that. She traveled with him on many of his trips and I thought it was a good example of going the extra mile just to spend time with your spouse.

Apparently all the museums close early in the winter so we ended up getting kicked out at 5:30, two hours earlier than expected. So we went outside to take a few pictures.

 

 Note to self: NEVER, EVER, EVER put your camera on AUTO. Never again!

I thought it would be easier to take a quick shot in the dark. BLAH!

As I'm going through these pictures from this trip I can totally tell which ones were taken with the AUTO feature. (can you tell the difference in the pictures of the Washington monument from above?) Auto pictures, are blurry, the lighting is terrible, and they just look bad. 

I'm not sure what Boyd is doing. . .

A dance perhaps? 

Probably. It was freezing cold.