Lincoln Park Zoo (10.24.22)

Sunday- 10.23.22

At church, our kids got to participate in the Primary Program of the branch that we’ve attended while we’ve been in Illinois. It was a lovely program. Everyone did so well. It was delightful. And again, I was so grateful that our kids were able to participate in a program this year, I didn’t think that would happen! And Grandparents even got to participate virtually! (Thank you to Peggy for the screenshots!)

After church, we had a nice relaxing day. We made brownies, and watched a movie, and just hung out. It was nice.

Every Sunday, once church is over, Logan likes to mess up his hair as much as he can. He’s a rascal. A cute rascal.

Monday, 10.24.22 THE ZOO

On Monday morning, we drove the 45 minutes to the Lincoln Park Zoo in downtown Chicago.

(Note: We are staying much further outside of Chicago than I had realized when I booked our stay. Which makes us less inclined to go downtown, but on the other hand, we wouldn’t have met the Lea family otherwise. So, we’re very happy to be where we are.)

This morning, Jonathan was kind enough to help us get out the door. Even with his help it took forever us to embark.

The Lincoln Park Zoo is a 36 acre zoo and was founded in 1866, making it the 4th oldest zoo in North America. One of my favorite parts is that it is free admission! (The parking was most decidedly not free.) Also, it is an incredibly scenic zoo. Especially with all the trees showing off their fall finery.

We enjoyed the views of the city from the Nature Boardwalk.

Isn’t the ombre effect of these vines so cool!?
I asked Evie to pose for me….
And Isaac insisted on posing too.
“Turtle Turtle!”

Our first stop within the zoo itself was the Reptile / Small mammal House.

We started with the reptiles: snakes, lizards, etc. There were a couple of frogs, but not nearly as many as Logan would have liked.

And then over in the small mammal section, our favorite was probably the Naked Mole rats (which surprised me as much as it probably surprises you) They were surprisingly engaging and fun to watch. The exhibit had been designed to be a replica of a burrow that you can look into. And so they were moving around and just living their lives and we got to watch.

Naked Mole Rat burrow
They really are rather homely creatures…bless their hearts.
I may have resorted to potty humor to get some genuine smiles.
There was a photo booth. So we all crammed in and did a picture. As you can see, the printing quality leave something to be desired…. But we managed to get at least part of everyone’s face in the picture.

By this point, we were getting hungry, and so we scouted a bit for somewhere to eat. And our meandering took us past the flamingos. So, we watched them for a bit before we moved on.

In the end, we found an ideal location to eat. It was a little elevated cul de sac with benches, and so we didn’t get in anyone’s way, it was secluded, and it was incredibly picturesque as well.

Jonathan had made us all lunches and he even included little notes for each person, which was very much appreciated by all. He’s a good fella.

Jonathan wrote each of us a cute note which he put in our lunches.
Our lunch spot.
The view from our lunch spot

After we had eaten, we decided to make our way over to the birds. But we got sidetracked when we walked past the Lions. A few of them were actually fairly active. And we even got to hear one of them roar, which we thought was pretty cool.

We once again started making our way to the Bird house, but we got sidetracked once again because we came across the gift shop. So, we went in and looked around for a few minutes. Those who had allowance chose their souvenirs and then we moved on.

There was a cute fall-ish display.
Evie was my semi-wiling but very wiggly model.
Cute punkin with punkins

Finally, we made it to the birds, which of course was fun for Clara. There were a several enclosures outside with birds in them. So we checked those out and then we went into the bird house.

There were some pretty cool birds, though there weren’t as many parrots as a certain bird lover would have hoped. (Although I don’t think there could ever be enough parrots to satisfy Clara.)

It was getting close to leaving time (aka 3 pm- I didn’t feel like sitting in rush hour traffic for an hour and a half, thank you very much.). So, we decided to check out one last thing: the primate house. And it ended up being one of our favorite parts of the zoo today.

The monkeys were in fine form, zipping around their enclosures, chasing each other etc. They were really fun to watch.

After we had finished up the primate house, we started making our way through the zoo, and back to the car. It was a lovely day at the zoo. The weather was perfect, and it was not at all busy. Perfect.