A visit to our nation's capital city!

A cool elephant sculpture at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington. DC. Copyright © 2013 Wendee Nicole

So at the end of October, I took a trip to DC to visit my friend Joe. The first thing we did was go see animals at the zoo! There were like a dozen otters running back and forth in their territory and it was the coolest thing ever! It was my second visit to the National Zoo. The first one was after taking my daughter to DC with her school class in 2006 (I blogged here)! I'd taken a separate flight and had extra time so went there to explore. There's a pic of the giant panda on that blog post, but they weren't on display this trip.

Loved this wall of panda stuffies in the gift shop!!

The main reason for my trip waste attend the Center for American Progress' 10-year anniversary conference, which included keynotes by Al Gore and John Kerry. I sat in the back of the room & this is an iPhone pic, but it's something! Seriously, Al Gore was on fire! He gave a dynamite speech!!

I love this picture of Joe & I at the Spy Museum! The museum was really cool. 

Joe in a Russian hat at the Spy Museum gift store. We both have Russian/Jewish ancestors! 

My grandfather was a Russian Jew. Like the Russian hat?

Hahaha I LOVED MAD Magazine as a kid! This brought back memories. 

We went for a walk to an awesome Korean restaurant Mandu for dinner with my friend Heidi and her guy Randy. This pic didn't turn out great but the sunset over the bridge was really nice. It was a lot of fun!