Lincoln Park Zoo

Caiman

Today we visited Lincoln Park Zoo. I didn’t realize until we arrived home that it’s been four years since our last visit. I guess that’s a testament to how much we stay away from the city. When I was younger I loved the city and spending as much time as possible in it, but now it just gets under my skin. It’s crowded and makes me feel claustrophobic. And parking is a nightmare. We couldn’t find any empty spots along Cannon Dr. which runs along the zoo, but did find metered spots along Clark St. It required a trip back to the car to feed the meter halfway through our visit, but it was worth it. Our total parking cost was $4 instead of $20+ in the zoo lot.

We would have preferred to visit the zoo during the week when it would have been less crowded, but the weather wasn’t cooperating. Today was the first non-rainy day we were free. It got crowded quite quickly and as a result we weren’t able to see everything even though we visited all the animal houses. Guess we’ll have to visit again soon instead of waiting another four years!

I must say, I’m actually quite fond of the photo at the beginning of this entry. I think it’s the best one I took today of the over 230 photos I ended up with.

My other favorites from today:
Baby Chick
Piglet
Gorilla

Check out all the Lincoln Park Zoo photos @ Perfect Pixels

Indiana Beach is getting expensive

I saw an advertisement recently for Indiana Beach where they were boasting about free admission so I went to their website to check it out. At first I was all excited because they said they are waiving the $2.50 per person admission fee to the park for the first time since 1972. That was until I saw that they raised the price of the ride wristbands from $23 to $27. Uh, thanks? So now it’s going to cost more than last year even with the so called free admission. Not only that, but they have special events every single weekend we have the kids in June and July, so the only possible “slow” Saturday would be in late August unless we take time off during the week to go.

If it was up to me and me only, we wouldn’t go at all. But I know the kids love it there, so we’ll go and I’ll try to focus on the tacos I’ll get to eat since that’s the only thing I look forward to regarding that place these days. Their prices are getting to the point it hardly seems worth the 2 hour drive each way to deal with a bunch of people crammed on a boardwalk. Great America is a hell of a lot closer but they want $55 per person just to get in the park. Are there even enough rides there to entertain two kids who do not like rollercoasters? I looked at their website but it didn’t look promising.

Peck Farm Park

Common Buckeye

We were supposed to visit Peck Farm Park yesterday, but the weather wasn’t very cooperative. It was cold, cloudy, and rainy. This morning was much nicer, except when we got there we realized it was too early in the season for the butterflies so there weren’t many to photograph. Even the foliage was sparse. Not too long after we arrived two busload of kids on a field trip (this late in the school year?) arrived, so we quickly made ourselves scarce.

Lesson learned – go on a Sunday in mid-Summer. Last year I got so many more photos.

Peck Farm Park 2009

Two Memorial Days are better than one

I’ve been so busy since our vacation started that I haven’t had the time, nor inclination, to update, so here’s a quick rundown of what we’ve been up to.

Saturday was spent running errands and cleaning the house. Joe also finished painting the molding around the hall closet and front door. The guest bath still needs work, but at least the foyer area looks good.

Sunday we celebrated Memorial Day early at my parents’ house. We got there early to work on Brother #2’s computer which is infected with a trojan. Even after reformatting his hard drive and reinstalling Windows, it was STILL there. Joe spent a good two hours working to try to eradicate it and was unsuccessful. It’s preventing my brother from being able to do Windows Updates so he’s probably going to end up buying a new computer. Just as well seeing how his is several years old at this point.

Monday we had our own BBQ at our place with friends. The weather was rather uncooperative, but the rain let up long enough to allow me to grill burgers and hot dogs. We played Pictionary and because Joe and I were on opposing teams, we both lost! It was a travesty. We also played a new game one of our friends brought over called Phase 10. It was pretty interesting, but with six people, one game lasted nearly two hours! By that time it was late so everyone took off since one of the couples weren’t off work the next day like the rest of us were.

Yesterday we got our license plate stickers and tried a new restaurant for lunch, then walked around Cosley Zoo for awhile. They have a really cool tank in their gift shop that has poison dart frogs inside. Oh, and I got this short video of a Baltimore Oriole chirping. He’s quite a bright orange!



We had a plumber come over at 1 pm to look at our damaged water spout outside. Unfortunately the part we need has to be ordered so he wasn’t able to fix it yet. We also wanted him to relocate the gas line behind the stove since it is preventing us from pushing the stove against the wall, but he was able to twist something back there to allow us to move the stove back without having to do all that work. Best of all he didn’t charge us anything. I really like that guy! He installed our water heater earlier this year when our old one died.

After the plumber left we had a quick lunch and then went to an afternoon showing of Star Trek which I really enjoyed. I was not thrilled with the three rude teenage boys sitting down the aisle from us, however. Who pays to see a movie and then instead talks the whole time, actually raising their voices during the loud parts? Joe and I both gave them a verbal lashing after twenty minutes of their bullshit and they finally shut up.

After the movie we stopped at Petco where I decided to get a Betta fish who has yet to be named. I came across my old 2-gallon tank the other day so I figured I’d fill it with something. I was originally going to get a goldfish but decided against it since the ones I like aren’t recommended for novices. I’d rather stick with a fish I know how to handle instead of killing one with my inexperience.

Here’s my Betta swimming around in his new tank this morning.



Today we just ran some more errands since it’s been raining off and on. We’re supposed to attend a beginner’s archery class tonight but at this rate I think it might get cancelled. I guess we’ll see.

Froggin’ Under The Stars

That’s what the event we attended tonight, sponsored by the forest preserve district of DuPage county, was called. We learned about frogs (there was a quiz!), heard frog calls from the native species in the area, and then hit the trails to listen to them in person. We heard American toads and Cope’s Grey treefrogs.

Along the way we came across an American toad which was quite fascinating to the kids in the group. I grew up in an area where they were prevalent so I wasn’t quite excited, but we did see a great horned owl which was cool. I’ve never seen one in the wild before.

We also saw a lot of stars, and could clearly see the international space station fly by which was really cool.

Normally the forest preserve is closed well before we had to leave (nearly 10 pm), so it was interesting to see how active the wildlife is at night.

All in all, a very nice way to start off our 10-day staycation. That’s right, we don’t have to work again until June 2nd. Woo hoo!