DC: National Cathedral & National Zoo
The day I graduated from 13 years of Catholic school, I decided I had done a lifetime’s amount of Catholicism. Check! Done. But the National Cathedral brought back all of those Catholic school girl feels. (I have no clue if the National Cathedral is Catholic?) But, man, I had forgotten how much I love a good stained glass window. When I was a girl sitting in church, I would stare off at the windows and make up stories about what I saw in the glass. Sure… stained glass is generally designed after stories from the Bible, but perhaps my heathen heart was brewing all the way back then, because I preferred to give them different stories about love, romance, adventure and very often, alien invasion.
I might have been a weird kid.
I had never been inside the National Cathedral before… or so I believed until I went to the bathroom and had a crazy deja vu moment remembering being there on our 8th grade trip to Washington DC. That was weird, huh? Spoiler Alert: The basement bathrooms have not been updated since 1994. Anyway, it was a very beautiful church. A little weird to see statues of George Washington instead of Mary, but whatevs. And only one crochety old lady yelled at us for letting our children walk on the kneelers saying they were being disrespectful of where people pray. Like a good Catholic girl, I reminded her of the bible story of when Jesus said “Let the little children come to me." and blessed them. How you like them apples, mean old child hater? Boom! Bible roasted! I may not be into organized religion, but I am down with the teachings of Jesus and Jesus was cool with the wiggles and the curiosity of children.
My suggestion to any DC visitors who want to see the Cathedral and the Zoo is to see them both in the same day as they are very close to each other. I actually suggest a late morning tour of the Cathedral and the Bishop’s Gardens (my FAVE), then walk across the street to 2 Amy’s for the best damn pizza EVER, and then take a quick Uber to the Zoo for the afternoon.
Zoo Tip: The National Zoo is carved into the side of an enormous hill. It is BRUTAL on the thighs and near torture when it’s August in DC and the humidity is intense. Park in the lots of the back entrance where the bottom of the hill is. Travel up the hill to see all the animals you’d like to see. Then, when you’re tired, you walk down the hill. You do not want to climb that hill when everyone is melting down and ready to go.
On this trip, we had the most amazing experience with the animals. The seals swam right up to our kids against the glass. One seal even stopped and just stayed there for about 90 seconds so they could all get a real look at her. It was so special. Arbor was freaking out with joy. And then… wait for it… WE SAW THE PANDAS! The DC pandas are famous and even though I’ve been to this zoo countless times, I’ve never been able to catch the pandas out and/or awake. But we saw all three of them while they munched on big trunks of bamboo.
Now, if only I had chosen to go to the zoo with a normal human being instead of with Miles The Iron Man Oberton. You see… Miles is one of those freaks of nature who runs marathons and does crazy things like running THE IRON MAN… so climbing the side of an enormous hill in the 98 degree heat was no big thing. It’s cool, Miles. I was dying but by all means, lets go see the damned cheetahs at the very top of the hill..
