A Trip to the Zoo

Normally, I avoid everything having to do with downtown DC in the summer. The tourons are out in force. It's hot. It's swampy. There is basically nothing positive about DC in the summer.

But friends of ours from long ago (somewhere around 2002 timeframe) who had moved to New Hampshire not long after that said, "Hey, we're in town for the week, wanna go to the zoo?"

My inside voice was screaming "No no no no no." But the words that popped out of my mouth were, "Sure, that sounds like fun."

Because apparently I do still know how to be nice.

The boys, I knew, would have a jolly time (they've been lobbying for a zoo trip for some time now. In fact, we were on our way to the zoo the day my Mom died, and I suspect that has played into my reticence to try again. That and the fact that I hate downtown.)

So I started trying to figure out how to go about sucking it up to get down there. We're members, so theoretically we get free parking. If you get there and there are actually spaces to be had. But it's the summer. And tourist season. So the likelihood of there being a parking spot seemed slim.

Hubby watches me doing mental gymnastics and coming very close to a panic attack about the whole thing (which ok, unreasonable, and yet there we are) and he's like "Why don't you ride in with me and take the metro?"

(I'd been eyeing the metro, but our closest stop is currently closed for the forseeable future because reasons. So that was adding to my joy.)

So okay. Yes. Let's do that. I put aside my concerns about riding the metro alone with the boys. Eldest, I knew, would be fine. Maybe even helpful (although he gets so nervous - comes by that anxiety honestly, he does - that the first train I had to physically herd him onto the car because it was the orange line at rush hour which meant standing inside someone else's personal space or never getting to ride). But the younger? He is...him. He's wonderful. And loving. And a delight. And he runs me ragged. There are issues and we are slowly unraveling them to see what they are how best to address them, but for now I spend a lot of time cringing about trying to take him anywhere because people judge. And they judge unkindly. Point being, him + metro + rush hour was not the most joyous thought.

But it was the best of the bad options.

In the end, it all turned out fine. There was a little hyperness on the train, but after the first almost falling over, a nice younger man gave his seat to youngest (seriously, I thought he might be an angel - what 20-something kid is going to look up from their phone to even notice, let alone do something?) and that made the ride much better. Switching trains to the red line was uneventful. And the walk from the metro to the zoo was less horrific (and not as uphill) as I remembered.

We met our friends. We saw pandas and elephants and snakes (oh yes, they dragged me through the reptile house. Stinkers.) We ate reasonably okay pizza (that was surprisingly not super gougily priced) and in all everyone had a grand time.

Will I be going back any time soon? Well, no. I think I'll wait for school to start back up again and take advantage of that flexibility. But if I had to, at least I know I could.

Right now, I'm just waiting for the ol sunburn to stop hurting, because apparently SPF 50 is not enough for me, even when reapplied as directed. Whee.