10- Brookfield Zoo

Here's a fun event. My grandparents had their 55th(?) anniversary this summer, and my mom and almost all her siblings met up in Chicago, stayed at a hotel, and did some fun things- including renting a stretch limo to drive to some places, including downtown up Lake Shore Drive. I got to meet up with them all at Brookfield Zoo, where I haven't been since I was a kid. I took the train out there, walked like a mile from the train, and met them for a day at the zoo. Here are a few highlights.

Uh this was just a cool plant in the arboretum or something. Looked like a freaky animal.

Speaking of freaky animals. A urchin thing. It was huge.

Uncle KP standing next to a polar bear (picture). WOW that bear is huge. Though they cheated by making his feet like 6 inches off the ground. But he's still 10 feet tall. DAMN.

And we saw the real thing! And the bear was trying to jailbreak! He spent most of the time clawing at the edge of the glass and gnawing on this piece of metal that was framing the glass, like he thought he was gonna get out- it was crazy...

In between though I managed to catch him with his paws on the glass, with all these kids watching him. Pretty amazing.

Though it occurred to me that zoos and TV shows might be teaching kids that animals like this are big and cuddly, even though it would clearly eat any of those kids on the other side of the glass that think they can just stand there and watch him...

Here's a little action shot...ironically of when people were sitting and resting.

And figuring out what to do next.

This. Was. Gross. This zoo...person, was pulling a giant sheet of winter camel fur off the camel's neck helping it shed. Sick.

We went in the aviary, and there was the most amazing colored bird up there...

These are porcupines! They had what looked like blankets on that were all their huge quills...pretty amazing actually, I'd never seen such long and dense amounts of quills.

Uncle Father Bill posing next to a snow leopard. And showing a nice reflection in the glass.

YEAH. We went in this giant monkey place. It dropped waaaaaay down to this forest of fake trees with ropes strung between them for some fun swinging :) The wall and the end was covered with a crazy amount of hanging plants, though I don't know if they were real or not...

Here's the giant jungle of fake trees. Pretty cool actually.

The patterns of branches looked really cool.

Monkeys. Enjoying their fake trees.

That's all. A pretty fun day at the zoo with some family.