Something tells me it's all happening at the zoo.

I do believe it. I do believe it's true.

Since my saintly mother has come to visit for a few days, I decided to take her to the National Zoo in Washington, DC yesterday. (Heck, it never hurts to see what they might be willing to offer in trade.)

Being Columbus Day, that day when we celebrate the Italian guy who discovered America and infuriated American leftists a few centuries later, traffic was light to nonexistent because all of the federal employees in DC had the day off. (And America didn't even miss them, as usual.)

They had lions. Lotsa lions.

They had an orangutan who swung on cables overhead, moving from one exhibit to another as he pleased.

Right turn, Clyde.

There was a Cuban Crocodile.

A pair of Dama Gazelles.

And there was a Sitatunga.

Here I drew a nasty look from two short-haired social-justice types next to us when they were grousing amongst themselves about how man is wiping out the habitat for such creatures and I sympathized and stated that it was a shame because they probably really tasted good.

Elephants! This zoo has a really large and impressive elephant exhibit. At the time though, only a couple of them were out and where you could see them.

There were a few peacocks strutting around inside their rather impressive bird habitat.

And they even had a bunch of cardinals, which were mostly probably local but they added to the color nicely.

This nice young lady was telling everyone about her beaver.

Free beaver shots!

(That ought to get my site traffic up a bit. And if you came here looking for something else, shame on you.)

They had seals here, both Harbor Seals and Gray Seals.

"Hey, does anyone here know what seals like to drink? Anything but Canadian Club! Thank you...I'll be here all day."
Yeah, that one got groans from the other people looking at the seals, too.

And there was one Andean Bear visible.

They had a lazy tiger who was sleeping in the back of his exhibit, no doubt just to ruin my "lions and tigers and bears..." meme, and a Gray Wolf who was beautiful but impossible to photograph because he was hiding in the back corner of the pen, doubtless due to the shrieking of little kids who were, sadly, plentiful on this day. My suggestion that we toss a little kid or two to the wolf seemed to draw mixed reactions, depending on who else around us had one of those kids or not.

All in all, the DC Zoo is worth a visit. I'd actually not been before and I thought that it was a decent medium-sized zoo with a good selection of animals, most of whom are in outdoor habitats with plenty of room for them and good views for us. And it is free, although it's run by the Smithsonian, so it's really "Smithsonian Free", meaning that admission costs you nothing but if you want to park your car, buy food or souvenirs or even get a map to the exhibits, you'd better have a pail of cash or good credit.