Lincoln Park Zoo

It is so easy for one lazy summer day to morph into the next until they all become indistinguishable. So every year my children and I create a list of the activities they would like to participate in. We may not get to all of them but we try to make a decent dent in the list. We made the list early this year, to accommodate Spring Break. And unlikely as it was the weather this year was quite cooperative. Intending to surprise my brood with a trip to the Lincoln Park Zoo, let my husband know of my intention, he wasn’t exactly thrilled.

My dear husband is overprotective. This is part of the reason Chicago remains a mystery after an almost 8 year residence. For some reason he believes that I have zero street smarts, even though I was raised in the wild wild city of Cleveland (translation Eastern Suburbs). However, I am no stranger to urban situations. I began making regular unsupervised sojourns into the interior of Cleveland at a fairly early age. Of course this is when it was still possible to ride RTA buses with endless transfers. Meanwhile my sweetie was languishing in a small town, west of Cleveland. Many of whose natives are afraid to venture past the town limits, believing Cleveland is a dangerous and exotic destination.

So it is with my inherent sense of adventure I set off, snacks packed, change in place (I don’t go on the expressway often enough for an I-PASS), car full of gas, two sets of directions, and three curious children belted in. Because of my horribly late start I had the pleasure of sitting in traffic for over two hours, combination expressway and narrow city streets. This is for a destination that is less than 32 miles away. A perfect example of why we are reluctant to leave our bedroom community. Chicago traffic is the pits! We do not time destinations based on mileage because that has very little to do with how long it takes to get where you are going.

Friends and family visiting from Ohio do not understand this, until they get here. It isn’t uncommon to get calls like this “We will have a layover in O’Hare. Come and visit us.” Um …NO. Or “I am here on business why don’t you meet me at 6p.m. on Tuesday? I am staying on Michigan Avenue.” NOT.

Meanwhile we are in the car. The children are asking the proverbial and cliched question “Are we there yet?” They also wanted to know where they were going. Remember this was a surprise. For three reasons: 1) Though the zoo was on their list kids can be contrary. “Mom we don’t want to go there today, maybe tomorrow.” 2) I wanted to leave myself wiggle room in case I got to the expressway and it was too crowded. Nickel City, in Northbrook, would not have been a bad trade off. What they don’t know… 3) Because there is no true expectation once they get there everyone is happy! And it worked!

Lincoln Park Zoo is free to the public aside from the cost of parking. Lake Michigan makes a beautiful backdrop from certain areas of the Zoo. We stopped at the information desk and got maps. I let the children direct the tour, keeping it as linear as possible. Unfortunately, some of the animals weren’t out because it was so early in spring. As disappointing as that was there was still plenty to see.

The lions were a definite highlight for us. But as you can see in the picture the male lion wasn’t as happy as we were. As a matter of fact he kept his back to us. Certainly a sign of disrespect, clearly mere humans gawking at him was not his idea of entertainment.

The enormous male gorilla, in the primate house, was actually on the floor level of the enclosure. However, he had his back to us also. The less intelligent humans, adults by the way, decided that they were going to stand there and hit the window until he turned around. He was not impressed. I couldn’t help thinking about King Kong. Fortunately he didn’t take the bait and demonstrate exactly how strong the glass was or wasn’t.

When we first got there the tiger was deep in the waterless moat in the outside enclosure. It seemed like it would have been a short leap to where the visitors stood. The picture shows that it is a much further distance. Still one would have to question is it far enough? Especially in light of the mauling at the San Francisco Zoo. 

On the way out we stopped once more at the tiger exhibit. There is an outside glass viewing area. The tiger was pacing on the ledge on his side of the glass. There was a crowd of people. One man thought it was a good idea to slap the glass and scream every time the tiger walked directly in front of him and his young son. The tiger was simply massive. His head was about half the length of my 5'4 son.
This was a good time to point out to my already horrified children how important it is not to antagonize animals, wild, or domestic.

Beyond the antics of the human “animals,” it was a great time. There were reptiles, bats, bugs, birds, and more, with the requisite lions and tigers and bears. My children got a chance to apply some of the things they learned in school. We had an awesome time discussing their thoughts and observations. It was the perfect day trip and they were perfectly tired. And I lived to “Mom” another day.