Our Vacation; Part 3 (Six Flags America)

Back in early June my husband and I traveled to Washington, DC. The main purpose of our trip was my sister-in-law's wedding in West Virginia, but since we had never traveled together (in almost 6 years of marriage) we decided to extend our trip and be tourists for a few days. Well before we left we had decided what we were going to do with our three days as tourists: see the sights of DC, visit the Smithsonian Zoo, and spend a day at Six Flags America.

Six Flags was a super fun experience. I hadn't been to a real amusement park since I was a kid, and J had never been to one. (The closest thing we have in Nova Scotia is Upper Clements Park and it doesn't even compare to Six Flags.) We went in the middle of the week so there weren't any crowds. We didn't have to stand in line for any of the rides. We rode everything at least once and rode our favourite roller coasters a couple times.

So hot & sweaty, but having so much fun!

We got a discount on our park tickets by buying them at the hotel before we left. It wasn't a huge discount, but we saved $20 US. (The exchange right wasn't quite as horrible then, but it was still pretty bad!) We ended up using our "savings" to buy refillable sports bottles. They were a bit pricey but I don't regret the purchase at all. It was so hot and all the concessions were really expensive so I don't think we would have kept ourselves properly hydrated if we hadn't bought them.

I was a little nervous about heading to the park after reading some of the reviews online, but our day at Six Flags was probably my favourite. It even beat the zoo and I loved the zoo! It was a very experience for us, the weather was fantastic, and the lack of line ups was so unexpected that we really felt like we had lucked in. Watching J's face on his first real roller coaster was something I'll never forget either!

Our Vacation; Part 2 (Smithsonian National Zoo)

Back in June my husband and I traveled to Washington, DC. His sister Rachel was getting married in West Virginia so we thought we'd spend a few days in DC before the wedding. Months before we left we had basically decided how we were going to spend our three days as tourists: seeing the sights of DC, the Smithsonian Zoo, and Six Flags America. For our first adventure we decided on the zoo.

After talking to the staff at the hotel and people we knew who had traveled to DC we decided to take the Metro into the city. It was a little intimidating. I'm not from a "small town" by any means but the population of DC is pretty much double the population of Halifax so our public transportation system is pretty tiny in comparison. We were really impressed by how easy it was to take the Metro - it was actually probably less complicated than taking the bus here. We parked our rental car at the station, boarded a train for downtown and less than an hour later we arrived at the zoo.

I had a fantastic time roaming around the zoo and visit all the animals. J struggled a bit since he's still recovering from his broken leg but he was a really good sport!

As soon as we started making our plans for our trip I started talking about the
 "giant baby pandas" so of course I posed with the sign. :-)

Speaking of giant pandas!

The one picture I absolutely wasn't leaving the zoo without. :-)

This is an American Beaver, and they are much small than their Canadian counterparts.
There was a zoo volunteer by his enclosure when we got there and we mentioned being Canadian.
She seemed very surprised when we told her we don't see beavers every day back home... 

And of course, a selfie!

We definitely enjoyed our visit to the Smithsonian National Zoo. The park was clean and the staff were friendly, If you're ever in DC it's definitely something I recommend checking out. (Especially since it's free!)

Our Vacation; Part 1

J and I just got back from 8 days in the US. J's sister Rachel was getting married in West Virginia and we decided to use the wedding as an excuse to actually go away. The town Rachel was getting married in was less than 2 hours from Washington, DC so we thought we'd spend the first couple days of our vacation being tourists before things switched to wedding mode.

Our flight from Halifax to Philadelphia was J's first time on a plane.

Getting from the airport to the hotel ended up being our first challenge. We had borrowed a GPS to use only it hadn't been completely updated with the area we were travelling. (My dad felt awful!) J talked to the guy at Budget about renting one, but he suggested we head to Walmart and just grab a cheap one to save some money. We got directions from two different people but ended up hopelessly lost before finding the Walmart. To make matters worse, it was dark and it started raining. Not just a little rain, but torrential rain with thunder and lightning. It was super scary.

We eventually made our way to a gas station where J ran in to try to get directions. The clerk at the gas station didn't speak strong english, but we headed in the direction he pointed. We ended up stopping for directions again at a Starbucks. We found a shopping centre and the first store we came across was Best Buy. It was getting late, so rather than try to find the Walmart we just ran in there hoping they'd have something cheap. The staff there were wonderful, but we definitely ended up paying more for a GPS than we planned. At that point we just wanted to find the hotel though so we didn't care.

By the time we got to the hotel we had been on the go for about 11 hours. Luckily, the staff at the hotel (the Metro Points in New Carrollton, Maryland) were awesome. They were friendly and helpful and we were checked in and on our way to our room in no time.

I am definitely missing having a king-size bed to sleep in!

Fortunately, the non-updated GPS ended up being pretty much the only hiccup of our whole trip, and things definitely got better from there. We decided to visit the Smithsonian National Zoo our first day but it's going to take a whole post of it's own.