Happy 2019!
If you are in the Washington DC region and want to start the year off right by taking advantage of the beautiful weather and taking a stroll around the Smithsonian National Zoo, you only have a few hours. While the Zoo - along with the other components of the Smithsonian Institute - had been thus far spared the effects of the Federal Government shut down, their luck runs out at midnight. Tomorrow morning they will be closed, and will remain so until the government reopens. Whenever that may be. (I feel like we've seen this movie before, and it wasn't any good then, either).
Of course, the keepers at the National Zoo - and their counterparts at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Virginia, will still be in, doing the good work of caring for animals. The blow is falling the hardest on the non-keeper/animal staff, such as the guest services team, who have a lot less financial security in this furlough position. Hopefully, this will get resolved soon, everyone will get paid what they are owed, and the Zoo and museums will reopen for all to enjoy.
Here's hoping that this is just 2018 trying to squeeze in a few residual drops of crazy, and that 2019 will be, on the whole, a great year.
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