Sunday Stroll: One Dog, 13 Ducks, and a Ham

Today, we took advantage of a lovely spring Sunday to wander around the National Mall and enjoy the sights. First, we had a picnic lunch along the Ellipse just south of the White House, enjoying the view of the futbol players and the Washington Monument. Then we had a leisurely stroll to view the south side of the White House and glimpsed a member of the First Family playing with Bo on the South Lawn before we, and all our fellow gawkers, were shooed away by the Secret Service.

Next, the Mall proper, starting at the Washington Monument and heading toward Capitol Hill. We kept being passed by tons of folks leaving the 2010 commencement ceremony for George Washington University - where the speaker was the First Lady. (We never saw or heard her.) Our second, very distant brush with the First Family today...

Afterward, we visited the Sculpture Garden for the National Gallery of Art (Geek Girl loves House 1 by Roy Lichtenstein) and watched lots of happy grads taking pictures there and on the steps of the various museums.

Eventually, we ended up at the Capitol Reflecting Pool, where we had some unexpected sights. First, we came across a mother duck (let's call her Suspicious Duck) with four juvenile ducks. Suspicious Duck was quite vigilant for people - any time someone came a bit too close, she craned her neck, started quacking in a low growl (if you can imagine such a thing), and spread out her feathers. Here is a distant shot:

What are you lookin' at?

Geek Girl wanted to sketch Suspicious Duck and her young ducks, so we walked around the pool to sit in the shade of a big tree. While we were sitting there, she drew quite a nice picture and Mama Geek and I chatted. We were pretty oblivious, but eventually we realized that a crowd had gathered, so we looked around and down. Here's what we saw:


That's Trusting Duck with her seven baby ducklings! She was quacking quietly and they were quacking back - almost cheeps. Really cute, and quite literally within my arm's reach as we sat together.

Trusting Duck wanted to take her babies to swim in the Reflecting Pool, so first, she had to get them off the planter and down onto the ground about two feet below. Here's what that looked like:

Ready...

Set...

Go!

All seven ducklings made the big hop and followed Trusting Duck around the edge of the pool. She kept quacking to guide them, and they very politely waddled along behind her. (How does she get them to do that? Never works for us...) Soon, it became apparent that Trusting Duck didn't really know how she was going to get her babies over the decorative edge into the pool, as it is about two feet high, and the babies were definitely having trouble getting that high with their stubby wings. In the end, Trusting Duck and her babies got a helping hand, or four, from me and two of the other bystanders - we each lifted some very soft, fuzzy duckies onto the lip and they slid on down into the water. Yes, Nai Nai, the hat you gave me does double duty as a duck carrier.

Here is a video of Trusting Duck and her babies swimming around in the Reflecting Pool:

It was time to start heading home, so we wandered past the Air and Space Museum to take in the planet walk along the sidewalk. Geek Girl was fascinated and read every sign in detail, and we talked about some fun facts for each planet, like the fact that a Venusian day is longer than a Venusian year and that the tilt of Uranus' axis of rotation is 82 degrees with respect to the plane of the ecliptic (this involved a pen and some twirling).

Between Uranus and Neptune, we stopped off to see some of Geek Girl's favorite art at the Hirshorn Gallery:



Pluto comes at the Smithsonian Castle, which meant we saw the lovely rose garden - and our Ham in Chief wearing The Giraffe Hat Nai-Nai Sent:


We walked on back to the car, stopping along the way for a snack while watching people play kickball at the Washington Monument and then to toss a certain rubber duck around like a baseball (it's a therapy thing). A yummy zvieri with good coffee and yesterday's dessert leftovers, a really yummy dinner made by Mama Geek, and time for this post.

The postscript: I have just been informed that I am #3 on The Official Geek Girl List of The Best Things in the World, behind drawing and reading ("Because you're sooooo funny, Daddy!"). Mama Geek is none too pleased with being #4. If Geek Girl knows what's good for her, she'll bump Mama Geek up to a tie for third. One thing's for sure, Mama Geek and I will never take the top spot.