Vacation

Well folks, some of you may have noticed that I haven't been around much the past week, and I have a good reason. My girlfriend and I took a trip up to D.C.. We spent an entire day at the National Zoo, (of course 75% of it in the reptile house ;))

Now for someone like myself, that doesn't get out very often, I saw some of the most amazing reptiles I've ever layed eyes upon. They had lots of venomous snakes, and I was able to witness 2 cobras breeding, a gaboon viper eating, and a boomslang climbing from branch to branch as if it was weightless. They had a few massive burmese pythons, and a green andaconda that was about 15 feet in length. I was beginning to get disappointed when the exhibit was coming to an end (i just wanted to see a ball ;))... and low and behold, one of the zoo keepers had one of his own pets with him. A 3 year old piebald with more white than I had ever imagined.

They had many species of lizards and geckos, the tokay being my favorite of the trip. They have exhibits for tamarins in the small mammel house, and inside were geckos everywhere. The exhibit description explained how tokays and tamarins live together benificially. The tokays were just chillin in the branches, and the tamarins didn't even seem to notice them. The exhibit was larger than my living room, and everywhere I looked I saw a gecko. In the reptile house, I got to witness the largest iguana I've ever seen eat a few grapes. Bearded dragons basking, marine iguana's swimming... and of course, komodo dragons... It was just a great day all in all...

But of all the reptiles I saw, the one I spent the most time watching was the plain jane red tail boa. It was massive, and very healthy. He seemed as if he was actually hunting in the wild.

Anyone in the Virginia/Maryland area, take a trip to the National Zoo in Washington. It's a non-profit zoo, the only thing you pay for is parking... Cost the two of us 20 dollars for a 12 hour trip to the zoo. :)



(sorry for the ramble, but I'm STILL excited 2 days later...)

-Will

Welcome back Will,
I am glad you had such a great time!
Rusty

That's great. I had a trip to the National Zoo 20+ years ago, and I'd love to go again.

20+ years ago, so you got to see it in its good days... before it shut down for rat infestation from city rats. yuck.

I didn't know that had happened. They had a white tiger and two pandas on loan from Asia at the time, though. I think the pandas names might have been Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing. I was only 12 at the time so a lot of it has faded, but i remember being ver impressed with the golden lion tamarinds. I thought they were the most gorgeous creatures I'd ever seen.

I saw both of those Panda's, and they have a baby now... I don't recall it's name...

Cool. I'm glad you got to go. I hope to make it to the San Diego Zoo sometime. My cousin lives walking distance from it, but i've never been.

san diego zoo is very nice haven't been in a few years since my grandmas use to live in san diego but has since pasted on, but everytime we were down there we wouldgot to the zoo or the wildlife park both awesome. one year my cusin and i were gonna fly down for a week and do a summer program at the soo., but of course we never got to it

Welcome back, Will. :) Glad to hear of a well taken care of reptile place.

Jennifer

Great to have you back Will. Glad to hear about the awesome visit. If you ever get out to Cali the San Diego Zoo is a must see as someone mentioned aswell as the Wild animal park but don't miss the Monterey bay aquarium if you can get there it's better than any that i've seen in Washington state or Oregon.

Welcome back Will! Sounds like an awsome trip, how big was the reptile house? And I told ya from the beggining that you'd love tokays. :)

Rockgecko, I used to be a regular visitor at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. I don't know if this is still true, but it used to be one of the least expensive zoos that was worth a visit. Chattanooga also has a very good aquarium, if you ever get that far southeast.

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Originally Posted by rockgecko

the Monterey bay aquarium if you can get there it's better than any that i've seen in Washington state or Oregon.

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I have to agree that the Montery bay aquarium is awesome!!

Glad you had a good trip, I'll have to go check it out sometime as well.

Personally, the San Diego Zoo sucks. It's expensive, they always seem to have the same animals. I don't know maybe it's cause is a few blocks from my current house, I lived near it when I was a kid and maybe I'm just tired of it. I'm telling you, we Californians take everything for granted :oops: .