Okay, I just got back from a two-week vacation up and down the East Coast of the United States. I'm going to do this in several updates (to keep it small for your Friends Pages), so please bear with me. I went with the wonderful animekittysama and her family. Here we go!

On July 5th, we started driving from Atlanta, Georgia to Washington D.C. It was very long and parts of it were very boring.

July 6th--we went to the American History Building of the Smithsonian Institution. That was a lot of fun, but we couldn't see everything. I swear, you could spend more than a month in Washington and still not get to see every exhibit in every building of the Smithsonian. It was still cool and I intend to come back one day. After leaving the Smithsonian, we headed around the Washington Monument and went to the (fairly new) World War 2 monument. It was beautiful! I intend to post pictures sometime later in the week. *keeps her fingers crossed* AnimeKitty and I headed on to the Lincoln Memorial, but it was as hot as hell that day and we boiled in the "wet blanket" weather of the East Coast. I love living on this side of the U.S. and I love visiting places all through here, but the weather makes me miserable. I still enjoyed myself though, and the monuments did impress me.

On July 7th we went to the National Zoo! As soon as we entered, we saw some orangutans crossing from one enclosure to the other. A "path" of sorts had been strung for them over our heads, using thick ropes. We also got to hear a lion roar! There was a male lion and a female, and both were sleeping when we arrived. Then the female woke up and started barking...it was wierd, like a really deep dog. I get the feeling she was trying to rouse her mate, because after a minute or two of this cough/bark, she went over to the male and smacked him on the head! He yawned and roared a couple of times and went back to sleep. Minimum of effort on his part. *laughs* We also got to see the pandas! Well, only one, since the female was in isolation. I'm sure you've heard that she has had a baby. ^_^ Oh, and I enjoyed both the reptile house and the small mammal house--so cute! (referring to the mammals; the reptiles were just cool)

Later on July 7th, we went to a baseball game in Baltimore, Maryland. It was the Boston Red Sox against the Baltimore Orioles. We were cheering for the Red Sox, as AnimeKitty and her family are from Massachusetts. (They've promised to go to an Atlanta Braves game and cheer my favorite team since I did it for them.) Unfortunately for us, there was a steady rain that night and the game ended in the 6th inning with the Red Sox losing. But we had fun and that is all that mattered.

I will update later this weekend with the next leg of our journey--Massachusetts! ^_~