It's no San Diego Zoo, but...

Nick's first weeks at his new squadron have been light, so we've taken advantage of the extra vacation-like time to get to know the area.

And let me tell you, D.C. is impressive.

We've driven into the District (that's what they call actual D.C. around here) twice and only got sort-of lost twice.

We found great hot dogs on the street.

 

 

We pretended to be tourists on the Mall.

 

 

And we started in on the Smithsonian, which is a collection of museums we're going to have to chip away at in small bits because there's just so much to see. The best part is that it's all free.

First, we visited the museum of natural history.

We saw the hope diamond and a bunch of cool gems and minerals.

 

 

 

We met Henry (the giant taxidermy elephant, not our son).

 

 

Our second trip was to the National Zoo.

It's no San Diego zoo, but it's free and has pandas, gorillas and flamingos, which are important to our family.





Our close proximity to all of this and the relative ease of getting around there (did I mention it's all free?) means that we'll try to keep up with these weekly dips into American government, history and culture.

I can see right now that 2 1/2 years most certainly will not be long enough to see it all.