Point Defiance Zoo, By Boat!

We woke up on Saturday morning, and it was raining.  Despite the fact that rain was in the forecast, we hadn’t planned for rain – no umbrellas!  But, the rain was supposed to taper off later in the morning, so we stayed cozy inside our boat and had a big breakfast while we waited for the skies to dry up.  

It dried up by about 10:30, so we all got dressed and headed out.  Mo did a great job of packing herself for our trip, but forgot a jacket and only had short-sleeved shirts, so she wore one of my sweatshirts until we reached the zoo gift shop.

But, it was a surprisingly long hike up to the zoo, even though it appears fairly close to the marina on the map.  After about 20 minutes of hiking uphill on a road with no shoulder with two young kids, we finally made it to the zoo.  And there, we had fun!

After the zoo, we were completely exhausted.  I also had a ridiculously busy week at work leading up to our trip, and I had ZERO time to plan meals, so of course I forgot everything for the evening’s meal except the pasta itself – no sauce, no meat, no nuthin’.  So, I tried to make reservations at Anthony’s.  Unfortunately, they don’t take reservations, and when we arrived with 2 debilitatingly hungry kids (and one worse mom), of course, the wait was over an hour.  When we told them our plight, the staff oh so helpfully (note the sarcasm) told us we could take a bus into town.  So, we checked the bus schedules… and discovered that the short 5-mile trip into town was over an hour long by bus.  (Thanks, Washington transit.)  So, we tried an Uber, and when our driver arrived he explained he couldn’t take the kids without carseats, and cabs couldn’t either.  But, he charged us for the pickup anyway.  So there we were, even more grumpy than when we started, an hour later but miraculously not any closer to getting a table at Anthony’s, so we went back to the boat and improvised a dinner that involved queso and chips and melted cheese on bread with some ham.  It all turned out just fine, as things tend to do on a boat.  But, note to future boaters – don’t think you can get in at Anthony’s, and also don’t plan on taking the bus!