Lincoln Park Zoo

This weekend Sean worked both days, in addition to having worked all week long. He was able to get off early in the morning on Sunday (this is after working for 5 hours), just in time for us to rush to church. It was a gorgeous day outside, so I packed some flip-flops in the car for an after church walk along the lake. We like to take as much advantage of time that we have together as possible, so on the spur of the moment, we decided to walk along the beach for a while and then continue on a few blocks from Moody to the Lincoln Park Zoo. 

What a cool place! The zoo was founded in 1868 and houses over 1000 animals. It is located on the southern part of Lincoln Park, right in the middle of the city. The zoo is open 365 days a year and is free to the public.

As we meandered into the zoo, by way of the Lincoln Park Lagoon, we noticed many paddle boats in the water, including a romantic paddle boat for two in the shape of a giant swan. I told Sean, "That is the one I want to rent." He seemed amused and said that we would look dumb. See for yourself.

One of the first exhibits we visited was an area with nocturnal animals. You know they always make those buildings creepy. They hang fake snakes above your head and have nighttime sounds on the speakers in the background. Everything needs to be dark or the animals would be sleeping and unavailable to be viewed by the public. The deeper we went into the rooms, the creepier it got. We arrived at the bats, and there was a small hallway to the left of the dimly lit room. I decided that whatever was back there was something that I did not need to see, so I let Sean (who had already scared me once) check it out by himself. He came back out of the hallway and said that I really needed to come and see what was in the small area adjacent to the bat sanctuary. At first I refused, noting that he was notorious for luring me into non-scary situations that he managed to make scary. He promised that this was not the case. As I skeptically followed him into the hall, I saw the following little creature. It is a sand cat. They have huge ears and the cutest faces. One even woke up and stretched for us.

 

This next little creature is a Patagonian cavy. It is sort of similar to a rabbit but bigger with long legs. 

Of course, the tigers. One of my favorites. I love their giant paws. Any kind of cats always fascinate me.

When I was a child, my mother said that I was related to these next ones because of their skinny legs. 

This monkey-guy is kind of hard to see in the picture, but he only had one arm. The other one had to be amputated after he was trying to reach for some food that the public threw. He did not seem phased to be one-armed and jumped around and did embarrassing things just like the rest of the primates. 

This last one is a kind of gecko. It is suctioned to the glass. I didn't even see it at first.