Night Lights

One place we’d never visited in the DC area was the National Zoo (http://nationalzoo.si.edu/), another affiliation of the Smithsonian Institution that covers 163 acres. Like all the Smithsonian museums, admission is free but street parking is extremely limited so you have to pay $16 to park in their lot. Each December the National Zoo holds a winter holiday event called ZooLights that features thousands of LED lights on trees, walkways, buildings, and even animal outlines. Russ was wearing his Missouri tiger jacket so of course I had to get a photo of him next to the tiger outlines!












In the Visitor Center was a kids’ farm-themed model train exhibit featuring several trains and lots of miniature cartoon character figures populating the farm and hillside...Mickey Mouse, Pink Panther, SpongeBob Squarepants, Spiderman, Cookie Monster, the Simpsons, Winnie the Pooh, and so many more plus lots of animals! Nearby tables held entries for the gingerbread “habitat” display contest (not pictured), and elsewhere in the park you could ride on the “trackless” train or skate on the “iceless” rink for a small fee, but we did neither. Outside the entrance to one of the buildings was a giant Snow Globe featuring Panda Claws, the official ZooLights ambassador, dancing to the music several times during the night. As you can see, the kids loved it!

This year several of the exhibit buildings were also open so you could view some of the animals at night. We were able to visit the Small Mammal House, the Great Ape House, and the Reptile Discovery Center. These photos represent just a snippet of some of the cool things we saw: a sleeping prehensile tailed porcupine, a very active sloth trying to get from one side of the cage to the other via the ceiling, a couple of blue poison frogs, and our favorite, the thinking man’s ape! There was a large crowd of people right as we walked into the Great Ape House, and there on the other side of the glass up high on the “rocks” sat this ape looking at all of us like we were the ones behind the glass (which to him we were!)












We had arrived shortly before dark and were able to see the cheetahs roaming in their outdoor habitat but didn’t get to see any of the other nearly 400 animals housed at the zoo. However, we plan to go back during the day some time before we leave the area.

The night of Christmas Eve we drove into DC to check out the National Christmas Tree. On the way we passed the Capitol Christmas Tree all lit up and looking very pretty. It seems that everyone was downtown for the same reason, and nearby parking was non-existent. We parked several blocks away on the other side of the beautifully lit Washington Monument and took a leisurely stroll towards the Ellipse, the grassy area south of the White House where the tree is planted. For those who don’t know, the tree that had been used since 1978 was damaged in February of this year, snapping the 42 ft. tree to about 4 ft. above ground level. It was removed and a new tree was planted by the National Park Service this spring, and this helps explain some of what we saw. I was so excited to be able to have this experience of seeing the National Christmas Tree and maybe we set our sights too high because we were both extremely disappointed. We hadn’t known about the new planting so were expecting a much taller tree, but we also expected a better shaped and better decorated tree. Basically a net of large Christmas bulbs are draped vertically from the top of the tree down to the bottom, and there are some large snowflake lights hung here and there with a star at the top. We’re not sure if the tree is actually misshapen at the top or if the netting has caused it to look that way, but you can sort of see in the photo what we’re talking about. It really was not very pretty and rather disappointing. At the base of the tree, several model trains ran along sets of tracks, and surrounding the approach to the tree are 56 smaller, decorated trees called the “Pathway of Peace” representing all 50 states, 5 territories, and the District of Columbia. Each year sponsoring organizations from each state provide the tree decorations that are encased in a protective plastic globe to shield them from the weather. Also nearby on the Ellipse is the National Chanukah Menorah, which was initially lit on Dec. 20, the first night of Chanukah, and this being the 5th night, 5 candles were shining brightly.

We took another route back to the car and walked through the World War II Memorial. Each of the 56 granite pillars stands 17 feet tall adorned with a bronze wreath and is inscribed with the name of the state or territory from that time period. And on this evening at the base of each pillar laid a green wreath adorned with red ribbon…a striking contrast and touching tribute. We'll be visiting this memorial again and will provide more photos and info next time.

Once back in the car we drove towards the Lincoln Memorial and found a parking spot (not hard this time of night) with plans to walk to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I had read that a Christmas tree is on display at the Memorial only during Christmas week, and as we approached the Memorial, we couldn’t see anything of the sort. The pathway along the Wall is barely lit with some lights softly shining upwards on the names, and we could not see a tree anywhere. We continued to walk along the path which has Christmas wreaths placed at the base of every other panel along the Wall, and there at the center point we finally saw what appeared to be a Christmas tree with no lights. Instead the tree is adorned with handmade ornaments, cards, and messages from schoolchildren from around the country that are placed there by visitors and volunteers. Each one serves as a reminder and recognition of the losses and sacrifices made by these brave men and women…truly touching tribute.

You may wonder about our Christmas decorations, and we’ve had to make a slight change this year. In the past we’ve hung icicle lights and greenery in the front window with our tree and nativity on the dash as we were comfortably parked in the warmth of FL. However this year we are parked in the chilly land of MD, and we soon discovered that the warmth inside the RV matched with the cool air outside created quite a bit of condensation on the inside of the front window every morning! We started running the oscillating fan to dry it each morning so it just didn’t seem conducive to our lights and greenery. One of the things we donated to the thrift store when we emptied our storage unit was our 2 ft. Christmas tree opting instead to display our little 10 in. Dept. 56 Celebration Tree from 2000. The little "2000" discs lights up at night and looks very nice with the nativity on our dining table, and we have a few other special decorations that we kept scattered throughout the RV.

We’ve had no snow yet (everyone keeps asking), but it has been chilly enough on a couple of occasions that Russ needed to scrape the car window before we could go anywhere. Hope that’s the worse it gets, but we kind of doubt it!