rockover

Last Day in DC (ARO) Well, I'm going to provide the update for today. We decided to take it leisurely since Randy's getting to be an old man and can't keep up the pace like he used to. We slept in and then went to the mall next to the Washington monument and then came back to hotel for lunch. The restaurant is on top of the hotel (about the 11th floor) and the location is excellent (15th and Pennsylvania Avenue). We got a nice table on the edge and could see the White House, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the WWII museum and the Jefferson Memorial from up there. I'm attaching one shot of Randy on the roof. Just as we were getting ready to leave, a helicopter (looked like the presidential one) landed on the White House lawn so I got a little bit of fuzzy video of it. Randy decided to take a nap and I decided to pack up all of our newly acquired junk. Afterwards, we took the metro (aka subway) to the zoo. Luckily Randy decided to stop at the Panda cafe to get some bottled water and it provided us with a good view of the papa Panda. He was there for about a minute before he wandered out of view. We then stood in line 20 minutes to get another glimpse through the official viewing area. He was sleeping and all you pretty much saw was a panda butt. The zoo is real nice, lots of natural habitat. The golden lion tamarin (a golden brown tree monkey) is actually allowed to wander free. We went to the small mammal house (think monkeys), the reptile house (big snakes and komodo dragons) and the invertebrate house. They actually had a display of golden orb spiders which was not enclosed in glass and you could touch the spiders and the webs. Yes, Evelyn, you would have gotten the creeps from this, several standers by did. We saw some tigers, cheetahs and even a Kangaroo playing dead. All in all, it was fun but our feet were definitely tired after all that walking. We're back at the hotel now getting ready to wake up at 4am Eastern Time (3am Texas time). I have a 6am flight and Randy's flight is at 6:45 am. Oh by the way Valerie, Randy apologizes for his typo. He called Fr. Damien, King Damien, by accident. See y'all soon! Azucena