December 31, 2012 - Day 5 in Washington D.C. - New Year's Eve

Today we walked over to the Smithsonian National Zoo.  It was huge!  I got over 25,000 steps this day and we only did the zoo.  It was really cold, so a lot of the animals were moved in, but a lot of these had enclosures inside that we could go into.  Some did not, but there was definitely enough to see and do.  I forgot to mention from the beginning that anything Smithsonian related (museums and zoos) were all free to go to.  The bad thing about D.C. is that the tax and food and beverage is 10%.  So, when you get your dinner bill at a restaurant, add 10% before gratuity because that is the tax on food.  Also, parking is expensive.  If I had known, we would not have gotten a rental car and we would have just used the metro all week instead.  It even went all the way to Mt. Vernon.  Parking the car each night at the hotel was $34 and most hotels were more than that.  Oh well, live and learn.

 

 

 

July 15- Day 2 in Chattanooga, Tennessee

Today we got up, ate breakfast, and headed out for the Chattanooga Zoo.  Since we are Brevard Zoo members, the admission was free!  It was probably 1/2 the size of the Brevard Zoo, but it had a lot of cool animals like the Servil, Cougar, Snow Leopard, Red Panda, Chimpanzees, Prairie Dogs, and a few more that I can't think of off the top of my head.  We went through twice in about 2 hours.

After that we head back towards St. Elmo's and had lunch at Mojo's Burritos.  Then we drove back up to Ruby Falls and the girls did the kid's zip line at Ruby Falls ZIPstream Aerial Adventure.  Kaylyn had done the zip line at the Brevard Zoo once with zoo camp, so she had an idea of what to do and loved it.  Ashlyn took a while to get the hang of the clips and locking them in, but after doing it three times, she had it down and was very proud of herself.  During the final zip line, I got Ashlyn on video, but accidentally stopped recording during Kaylyn's, so I did not get Kaylyn on video.  To see the video click here.  I guess that means we'll have to do it again sometime!  It was a lot of fun!

After that, we headed back to the hotel and walked across the street to the gas station to get something to drink and now we are sitting in our hotel being lazy.  The girls are watching Netflix on their Nooks, Jason is watching television, and I'm on the computer.