Through Abby's Lens, a travel blog: Day 5 in D.C.: African American Museum and Smithsonian Zoo

National Museum of African American History and Culture

Day 5 of our trip to D.C., we visited the National Museum of African American History and Culture. This was our last time-stamped entry ticket spot (free, like all the Smithsonians), and one of the museums I was most excited to visit this trip because I've been wanting to visit since it opened! There was definitely demand for tickets, so I'd recommend booking ahead of time.

The museum has eight floors or exhibits - three downstairs devoted to history, a concourse and entry floor, and three upstairs featuring cultural, community and temporary exhibits. The museum had a map with suggested paths to take, and we decided to visit the bottom three floors before lunch and see how we felt. We spent about 3.5 hours on those floors, and decided to save the top floors for hopefully another visit.

A note if you are planning to visit--make sure to bring some clothing layers. I forgot my sweater on this day, and was frozen like a popsicle from the air conditioning. :-)

This was an excellent museum! It was comprehensive about history and how it related to African Americans from the 1400s through when the museum opened in 2016. Very informative, included a variety of mediums, and gave room to sit and reflect on each floor. I found that my kids got the most out of the short documentary videos playing throughout--they wanted to watch every single one, and the videos encapsulated a lot of the info shared in those areas.

I wish I could have visited a museum like this when I was my kids' age--I'm so glad we got to go!

I can't stop thinking about this point. After walking around Washington D.C. for days. America's capital city was literally built by African Americans.

A simulated lunch counter

Wilder did a Black History Month presentation about Bessie Colman in elementary school and he saw her info at the Air & Space Museum. Felicity did a presentation about Shirley Chisholm, shown here!

For lunch, we made sure to go to the Sweet Home Cafe in the museum, which is so good that they have a James Beard Foundation Awards Nominee Best American Cookbook with its recipes. There were so many yummy options on the menu! Zach and Felicity chose roasted chicken, Wilder had fries, I had creole-seasoned lamb chops and green beans. SO good.

After the African American History Museum, we decided to head over to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. We took an uber, since it was too bit far to walk. Once we got there, I selected time-stamped entry (there wasn't too much demand so tickets were available).

We had initially planned to just see the pandas, because they are only at two zoos in the entire United States (this one and the San Diego Zoo). But when we looked at the zoo map, Wilder wanted to see the Amazonian exhibit at the far end of the park and I wanted to see the Przewalski's horses. So we ended up walking around to the very end of the zoo and back.

We really enjoyed the zoo, despite our feet being tired from walking all day, the uphill climb from the other end of the zoo, and the day really warming up. :-) Starbucks just outside the zoo after our visit revived us!

I can't get over how cute pandas are

Przewalski's horses

Fun fact: I have met Przewalski horses before, in Fort Worth. Kit Moncrief (A horsewoman and philanthropist) is part of the Smithsonian breeding program so she had some on her property. I wrote an article about it for Fort Worth Magazine.