The last time I went to the National Zoo I was in third grade, so that would make me around eight years old.  My Mother, my Brother and I took Amtrak down to the Capital and stayed in a few places, but the highlight of the trip for me was the Air and Space Museum, and the National Zoo specifically for Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing.  I can’t find them at the moment, but I’ve got some frolicking panda pictures taken on a Kodak instamatic point and shoot camera from the seventies- you remember the one, the one with the big plastic flipflash unit you’d plug into the top, and they’d fire one by one.

Yes, it’s been thirty years since I went to the Zoo last.  The Wife and Family have shown some resistance in the past towards things DC, as when they were children, it would be the destination of choice for field trips annually.  I would imagine that if you take 12 years of primary schooling and hit the same destinations year in and year out, then you’d grow tired of them.

Ling Ling died in 1992, and I noted the event, but I had a lot of other things going on in my life at the time.  When I started dating the wife-to-be, I mentioned my appreciation for things DC.  We did go to Air and Space, but the Zoo eluded us. 

Hsing Hsing died in 1999.  I wasn’t thrilled.  Since then, it’s been something that I bring up (mostly) in jest when things aren’t going my way, or I’ve asked to do something and it keeps getting put off - “This isn’t going to be another panda incident, is it, dear?”  This normally gets me slugged in the arm.

A few Sundays ago we were considering a trip, but the remnants of a tropical storm made that a bad idea.  A few weeks pass and considering an impending road trip and no idea how Marissa would do being away from her comfortable home, too late on Saturday morning we decided to head off to the National Zoo.  We picked up the Auntie, and off we went to DC!

I mentioned it was too late on Saturday morning- Fairfax and the traveling group were met with bumper to bumper traffic on 395.  An hour and 10 miles later, we hit the zoo.  I think we got the very last parking spot in the very farthest parking lot.  We did bring Fairfax, and we experienced “The look” first hand.  Other Fairfax photographers know what this look is, people look at you, look at the bunny, look back at you, and maybe they ask what you’re doing, but most likely, they don’t.

We toured nearly the entire zoo in four hours at what seemed like a breakneck pace.  The zoo seemed to be about quarter-closed for renovations and for chiseling out a great swath of the zoo for a naturalized Elephant habitat, so that was mildly disappointing.

The pandas were out cold in the pens, so no panda frolicking in the yard or eating a carrot pictures like in 1979.  That’s fine though, it was still an amazing event for Marissa’s Dad, maybe not quite so much for Marissa’s Mom and Auntie, but they enjoyed themselves just the same.  I’m sure that Marissa won’t appreciate it as much as I until she’s about 25 and realizes her parents aren’t actually stupid, but I’m glad that she’ll have the chance to see things like this in DC on a fairly routine basis.

Oh, in case you were wondering, no seizures during the day, only one at 5:55 AM the next morning, 5 minutes before she’s scheduled to get her morning dose of Keppra.  We have high hopes for the roadtrip and seizure control.