NATIONAL ZOO

Our family absolutely loves to travel. We have travelled with our kids from 6 months of age and they have done really well. Another factor that I came to understand over the past 8 years of marriage is that it's more fun to travel with my wife and kids. So whether for work or pleasure I like to make sure my family comes along. And they don't mind at all. 

This trip to Washington DC was for a CME conference. Since it's a reasonable  car ride from Syracuse, so we decided to take a road trip. The key factor is to bring  plenty of things to occupy the kids time, and hope they take a good long nap. 

Since the Smithsonian National Zoo was on the way to the hotel, we decided to stop there and stretch our legs. 

Upon entering the zoo, we noticed that the place was huge. There was a lot of walking time between the outside exihibits and buildings. The overall trails aren't very confusing but there are many shorter trails to the outside exhibits. So the difficult part was keeping track of which trails you have done. Another factor that wasn't in our favor, was the heat, high 90's and high humidity. Some parts of the trail are shaded but not enough when it's that hot. And on top of that, the zoo is on a hill. At times we had a nice sweat job pushing a stroller up a hill. 

Apart from the above factors, we had a great time looking at animals that we don't normally see at our local zoo. There was a very nice Panda Exhibit. There was also a lot more tropical mammals and reptiles.  

After the zoo, we drove 2.9 miles for 30 minutes due to traffic, through downtown to our hotel, the Manderin Oriental. It was our first time at this hotel, and it was a pleasant experience. Friendly staff, parking garage very close, great rooms, and most important of all its within close walking distance to most of the attractions. 

Our view from the belcony

For dinner we walked down the street to L'Enfant Plaza which had 6-8 restaurants to chose from. There were several new to our family and there were a couple of our favorites as well.