11 Years Ago

Always Remember...

Nothing else can be written today except words that remember the world changing events that happened on the island of Manhattan in New York City 11 years ago. 

As Alan Jackson would ask in his song about that "September day", Where were you when the world stopped turning? 

Everyone has a story about September 11th. In my 2001 yearbook I shared how I experienced and watched that morning unfold. 

What I saw on the television was so surreal. It seemed like something out of a movie. But it was all too real. 

I am grateful that we had the leadership in place that we did at the time. In his book, Decision Points, George W. Bush, discusses the actions and choices that he and his administration made to keep the nation from panic and react to the "act of war" that had forever changed us as Americans. 

New York City, the Pentagon, and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania are all places where Americans gave their lives in sacrifice to save others. The passengers of Flight 93 giving their lives to bring down the 4th plane before it could do any harm. I am forever thankful for their sacrifice. 

In 2007 I made a brief visit to "Ground Zero" where the World Trade Center once stood. I drove past it but didn't get a chance to stop and see much. But just being in that area gave me a sense of what it must have been like that fateful day. 

Recently I stood on the Sky Deck of Chicago's Willis tower looking out over Chicago 103 floors above the street. I couldn't help but think of and wonder about the last moments of those trapped on the upper floors of the two burning towers.  

But even though we may never know all that happened to everyone on that day; what we do know is that we will never forget the evil men who were responsible. 

Even though many of them, including Osama Bin Laden. have   received the ultimate justice they deserved it is my prayer that  the United States and it's law enforcement and intelligence agencies will remain every vigilant. 

May the events of September 11, 2001 be the last time our country is ever the victim of such an attack. 

  

Another September 9th

Yesterday, my 52nd birthday, didn't start out very well. While getting ready for church my left knee "went out" on me. I didn't do anything that would have made it happen. I just was just walking out of the bathroom. But I felt a pain in the inside of my left knee. If was as if my kneecap had gone out of place.

This wasn't the first time I'd experienced this type of thing happening to my knees. But in the past it was only while going down steps and the pain stopped after only a few steps. This time it wasn't going away so quickly.   

I put my leg up and put some ice on it. After a few minutes it felt better. I got ready for church but still had to favor my left leg. 

I drove Paula's car to church; sitting with my left leg bent at a 90 degree angle as I drove. When I got out of the car my knee was fine. It was as if the problem had never happened. 

So that made the prospect of this day turning out okay a lot better. But the incident reminded me that sometime in the future I'll be facing the challenge of knee problems. But I'll deal with that when it happens. 

We went to our Sunday School class down in the church fellowship hall. I hadn't been there in about 4 weeks. Our class had a good discussion about waiting for God's timing in the fulfillment of His promises in our lives. 

After class I went upstairs to the sanctuary because I was going to be doing singing at the beginning of the morning worship service. 

I found my a place to sit in the pews on the left side of the sanctuary. I turned around and sang the Beatles song "Birthday" to a little girl who was having a birthday too. I couldn't resist singing "Today is your birthday. It's my birthday to yeah!"

Just then my daughter in law, Brandi, came in with her niece, Alexis and my grand daughter, Aria. James wasn't there because he was had army training this weekend. 

I was not expecting to see them at all on my birthday. I was absolutely overjoyed. They sat down next to us in the pew. 

I kissed the baby and went to look for my wife to tell her they were there. I went down into the fellowship hall to get her but she was nowhere to be found. When I got back upstairs she was sitting in our pew. 

I opened the morning worship service by singing a song written by one of my favorite gospel song writers, Neil Enloe. 

It was also the first day of the 2012 NFL season and my song was about football in it. So to get everybody's attention, I played the Monday Night Football theme song over the PA system. 

Then the music track to the song started. It was called "You Won't Scare God Away". The lyrics point out how as football fans we go all out to cheer for our team at the game. But as Christians we are told to be quite in church despite God's glory being incomparably better than football. The song says "Go ahead and shout, you won't scare God away". 

The first couple of lines of the song mentions scoring a touchdown. When I sang them I turned to the right side of our platform and threw a Nerf football to my friend, and our associate pastor, Mark, who was sitting behind me in the back row of the choir. 

He caught the ball and spiked it celebrating a "touchdown". It was a fun addition to the song. Thanks for helping me, Mark. 

During the song's 2nd chorus I encouraged the congregation to participate. So at just the right time I cued them to shout "Praise The Lord" and then raise their hands saying "Hallelujah". 

The song went great. I've known that song since I was a teenager. It was recorded by my all time favorite gospel group, The Couriers. 

After I finished singing our pastor got up to give the "official welcome". He complimented me and told everyone that it was my birthday. They all clapped and wished me a "happy birthday."

During the children's sermon, Pastor Tim, mentioned that it was "Grandparent's Day". This made having Aria and Brandi there all that more special. 

Tim had all the grandparents stand and got the children to go around the sanctuary and give them hugs. I got hugs from two little girls that I teach in children's church. 

After church was over I got the chance to just sit and hold Aria on my lap. Various church members came over and to see the baby and wish me a happy birthday. 

Pastor Tim's and our Family Pastor Duane's sons came over to see us. They made a joke that Aria was "Cecil Jr." because she was sitting on my lap like my turtle puppet does. They thought it was really funny. They started saying "Hi Cecil Jr." to Aria. It was funny. 

Here's a picture Paula took IPhone so I would remember this special day. 

My birthday afternoon was spent at home watching the Yankees play the Baltimore Orioles in a game that would determine first place in the American League East. 

Although the Yankees took a 5-0 lead in the top of the 4th their starter, Freddie Garcia, gave up 3 runs in the bottom of that inning. I was a bit upset. 

Ever since we saw them lose the first of three games in Chicago, the Yankees have let game after game slip away along with their divisional lead. 

But the Yankees offense came to life during the game. They scored 13 runs including home runs by Curtis Granderson and Derek Jeter. The bullpen pitchers did a great job as well holding the Orioles scoreless over the last 5 1/3 innings. 

I fell asleep on our living room love seat for the last 3 innings or so but woke up enough to see the end of the game. The win may be a turning point in the Yankees season. It was a nice "birthday present". 

Another good thing that happened on my birthday: the Washington Redskins' opening day win over the New Orleans Saints. 

At 5:30 Paula and I went over to James and Brandi's house for dinner. James was back from training and Brandi invited us over.  

She made a chicken and rice dish that was very good. She also made me a pineapple upside down cake. It was delicious. Thank you Brandi. You really made my birthday a special one. 

I got to spend some more time with Aria. The best thing was that Paula got to spend some time with her. "Nana" hadn't gotten to see her grand daughter as much as I had lately. Just watching Paula play with her was a joy.  She even got the baby to fall asleep on her shoulder. 

About 8:30 we left Richardsville to come home. I finished proof reading the last in a series of blog posts about our August vacation to Chicago and then published it. 

I got lots of birthday greetings by way of Facebook and phone text and cards. I appreciate each and every one of them. 

Paula went to bed about 10:30. I stayed up and saw my birthday "officially" come to an end. After dozing once again on the 

It was a very good birthday filled with the joy of spending time with James, Brandi and best of all my grand baby. 

Tomorrow starts my 53rd year of life. I have been thinking that this may be a good time to set some goals. More on that in a future post. 

Weekend In Chicago: Wrap Up

Wrap Up

As we drove down I-274 the developed suburban Chicago area was replaced by the less populated interior northeast Illinois area.

The last notable thing I saw while driving down the highway was this billboard with a familiar friend.  

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The late start on our journey home guaranteed the majority of our drive would be in the dark. 

Although we wanted to get a some highway behind us, we stopped soon after leaving the city. We had not had any lunch, just the soft pretzel at the zoo, so we were famished. 

We stopped at a Cracker Barrel restaurant for some dinner. The meal was good and got us ready for the long ride home.

Fifty miles later we merged onto I-65. This is one of the great things about coming back from Chicago. Once you hit 65 it's a straight shot south to home. 

We made 2 or 3 stops to get something to drink and or a snack including once at an empty public rest stop. When we pulled into the parking lot there were no other cars. 

Having seen way too many movies and TV shows about serial killers I was a little creeped out. Especially when I came out of the rest room and saw another car in the parking lot but didn't see anyone come into the building. 

My apprehensions were appeased as we were walking back to the car from the vending machines. We saw a woman walking her dog on the grass and a man came out of the main building. 

One of the things I wanted Paula to see on our drive was the Fowler Ridge and Benton windmill farms in Benton county, Indiana. It's a group of about 450 wind turbines distributed over a 17,000 square acre area. They are about 90 miles northwest of Indianapolis. 

On our way to Chicago we drove through that area around 11 o'clock at night. The only thing we could see were the hundreds of red lights marking each of the of the windmills for air crafts. It was rather visually fascinating but not as interesting as the landscape in the daylight. 

On the way back the same thing happened. We went through the windmill field in the dark. So Paula never saw one of my favorite things about driving on that part of I-65. So here's a You Tube link to see video of what Paula did not get to see. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTunI0GoxAM

Maybe next trip we take to the Windy City we can see the wind turbines in the daytime for ourselves. 

Through the rest of Indiana there was nothing to do but keep the pedal to the metal and head on down the highway. Driving at night it's always more difficult to stay awake and focused than during the day. 

Paula watched shows on NetFlix through her I-Phone. To stay focused as I drove I moved the AM radio from station to station trying to listen to different baseball games. I listened to the Cincinnati Reds playing the Phillies, the Cubs playing the Brewers and the Yankees against the White Sox. I listened to that last game not on a station out of Chicago but one out of New York. 

Because radio waves travel farther at night I was able to pick up the clear channel signal of AM 880 WCBS out of New York. I didn't have the signal for very long but I did manage to hear an inning or so. 

Once we left Indiana, crossed over the bridge into Kentucky, and drove through Louisville we were on the final 100 miles. 

No matter how often I travel this stretch of the interstate on the way home, it always seems to take longer than any other part of the trip. On this trip, the fatigue from the pace of the last few days really increased this effect. 

Finally we saw the exit sign for Smiths Grove. As always I was very very happy to active my turn signal and get off on the exit ramp. 

We walked in the front door about 1:30 AM on Wednesday morning. Our dogs, Angel and Dory, were over joyed to see us again. We took some time to say "hello" to them and then unloaded the car. 

Totally worn out and happy to be, as my dad used to say,  "home again home again" we said "good night" in our own comfy bed about 2AM. Our weekend in Chicago was officially over. Luckily, Paula had the next day off from work and we had a day to rest and recover. 

Some Final Thoughts

Now I know that I have written a lot more about the details of our vacation than anyone would ever want to know. If you have read all of the other 9 posts in this series I thank you and would like to tell you that you have made it to the end.

But I do have some additional details, memories, and some final recommendations to share with you.

Let me start with a couple of details that I haven't mentioned in this series so far but were part of our vacation. 

Now I've already mentioned the price of parking in the downtown areas. An additional driving cost I didn't mention was tolls. There are a lot of toll booths on the expressways of Chicago. 

On our way into the city Friday night we went through at least 4 toll plazas and paid just about $10 in total toll charges. This was unexpected and really got me mad. I was outraged. But I quickly realized that this was going to be a part of being a tourist. I didn't keep track of the cost of tolls after that. 

Writing about tolls brings me to the subject of road construction. Now that may seem like a non sequitur but trust me there is a connection. 

Like any other big city, in Chicago we encountered a lot of road construction during our trip. It caused us to be delayed anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes at various times during our 4 day stay. 

What really caused a problem for us was when the combination of road construction and paying a toll intersected. 

The toll plazas in Chicago (as is true with most any toll road today) are divided up into two sections. The booths to the left of the plaza are designated for electronic toll payments.

Some vehicles have an electronic marker on them and are scanned as they pass through the booth. Charging their toll cost to an "IPass" account and is billed to them later. 

The booths on the right side of the plaza are designated as CASH ONLY lanes. If you don't have IPass those are the lanes you used.  

Three times, during our trip, while driving in construction zones near toll plazas I had problems. The traffic patterns were set up in such a way that it made it difficult to get to the right hand CASH ONLY lanes. So difficult that in all three situations we missed the cash lanes and drove through the IPass booths. 

We were worried about what to do because we were sure there was some kind of system set up to catch drivers that don't pay tolls. But we weren't sure what to do about it.  

At the last toll booth we went through, on our way out of the city, I asked the attendant what we needed to do. She gave us a piece of paper with the appropriate information. We found out that we had 7 days to pay our tolls before we received a citation. Each violation would be a find of $20 each.  

Once we were home I looked up the website. It was a bit frustrating at first because I had to choose from a list of all the toll plaza locations to report the specific plazas we missed. I had no idea what they were. I had to do some checking on the GPS and remember when they happened. 

Finally I managed to pay all 3 missed tolls; paying less than $15 total. Sure beats having to pay $60. 

Another unexpected expense was the price of bottled water. While we were in a lot of places that are considered "tourist traps", and it is expected that the cost of everything would be inflated. 

But having to pay between $2 and $4 for a 16oz bottle of just plain water is highway robbery. Still because we were often thirsty we had to pay the price. 

The best price I paid for a bottle of water during our trip was just $1 at the juice bar in the John Hancock Building. I was pleasantly surprised about that. 

In the last post I mentioned the store that was close to our hotel. This place was a combination gas station/store/Dunkin Donuts shop. It was really lived up to being a convenience store for us during our stay. 

We bought breakfast from the Dunkin Donuts 2 of the 4 days. It's where Paula got her morning coffee and I got my diet Dr. Pepper there before we headed out for the day.

Now for a couple of regrets. I was very happy about getting to see Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex at the Field Museum because of the connection she has to Walt Disney World. But I missed another more significant Disney connection in  Chicago. I found out about it a couple of years ago but it totally slipped my mind until after we got back home. 

Walt Disney was born in Chicago in 1901 at 2156 Tripp Avenue in the Hermosa section of the city. Our hotel was only 10 miles from it. 

The house is not a museum or has any kind of official special designation. It's just a house but it's the house designed and build by Walt Disney's parents. There's a church near by that has some Disney history attached to it as well. 

I guess it's a good thing that I didn't remember about Walt Disney's birthplace. I don't know where in our vacation I would have found the time to go there. 

My other regret is that this was my 3rd trip to Chicago and I have yet to see the inside of Wrigley Field. Going there was not in our plans but I would have liked to have at least shown Paula the area. The streets surrounding the ballpark comprise one of the most unique of all the many Chicago neighborhoods. 

While doing research for this post I found out that we could have gotten to Wrigley Field rather easily. All we would have had to do was follow West Irving Avenue, the road our hotel was on, for 12 miles turned left one block and we would have been there. 

So there are my two regrets about the trip. In addition there are other landmarks, museums, and tourist attractions that I'd like to visit as well. But there's always next time. 

The final detail I want to mention are the souvenirs. The pressed pennies and refrigerator magnets I bought to remind me of my trip. These two items are the best inexpensive souvenirs a tourist can buy. 

Here are pictures of the magnets and pennies I brought back from Chicago. 

My Trip Advice

Finally, I'm going to give you some tips based on what I learned during our time in Chicago. I know there's plenty of expert advice already available from travel books and websites; I used them myself. But this is what I would do if I was going to visit the Windy City again. 

Hotels: Do a lot of research before you decide on a place to stay. The closer to the downtown area you get the more you'll pay for a room. Remember it's a major US city. The room rates for a 2 star room on the average starts at $150 a night. 

But you also have to consider your plans in deciding on your hotel. Remember if you stay close to the places you want to visit you may save on the cost of parking. You have to decide if you want to pay the extra cost for a convenient hotel or pay for parking. 

Parking & Tolls: As I've mentioned more than once be prepared to spend a lot for parking and tolls. There are ways  to minimize the cost of each but you have to plan. If you don't mind riding on public transportation there's plenty of it available. You can get a discounted pass to use during your stay. If you like to walk, a lot and I do mean a lot, you can choose that as your means of getting around. But there will be places you have to drive or take public transit. 

Logistics and Navigation: Before you go get to know your way around a Chicago map. Have an idea of the locations of the places you want to visit or where you want to eat. But no preparation can be a substitute for being there. Once you get to city drive around a bit to get the lay of the land. The traffic is fast paced and congested, especially in the downtown and Magnificent Mile areas. There are lots of one way streets. 

Touring: As I've already mentioned there are a thousand things to do in Chicago. Again, do your research and specifically choose what you want to do and see. I would recommend not more than one or two major things in one day. (Did you read the posts about Day 1 and Day 3 in this series? Doing too many things in one day is exhausting) Take your time and enjoy. This is one case where less is more. For me this is totally Monday morning quarterbacking. But I'll know better on my next trip. 

Buy A Discount Pass: If you want to save some money on some of the major tourist attractions I recommend buying one of the Chicago discount passes available. There are several of them online. But make sure you're going to use all or the majority of the discounts it offers. Do the math. Compare the non discounted admission prices for the attractions you want to see against the total cost of the bundled discounted attractions included on the card, some of which you may not use. Then decide if it will save you money. 

Take a tour: Chicago offers guided tours that cover a wide variety of interests. They feature tours of movie locations, historical architecture, city landmarks, and gangster history to name a few. You can take tours by bus, boat, bike and even Segway. In addition there are dinner cruises on Lake Michigan. Do your homework and see what you'd like. We didn't do one but next time we will.   

Enjoy The City: Chicago is one of the most beautiful big cites I've ever been to. Their parks are wonderful. You could spend days just enjoying them. The variety of buildings and architecture right next to each other is amazing. To paraphrase Matthew Brodrick in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", your time in Chicago goes by too fast. If you don't take some time to look around you might miss something. 

At Last...The End

So after 10 posts (the longest series in the history of this blog) this Chicago trip report comes to an end. It's been a couple of weeks since those four busy and fun days next to Lake Michigan. Paula is still telling people that I wore her out. 

This makes her resolve to take our next vacation at the beach. Where she can sit in a chair by the water under an umbrella with sunglasses, a book, and a cold drink of her choice. My question to that is what are we going to do with the other 23 hours in the day?

I don't know if I'll ever get her to go back to Chicago but as I've already mentioned there are at least a couple of specific things I would like to do. 

I don't have a way to conclude this series that would put a nice "bow" on our vacation. But I do have a lot of wonderful memories. 

The best thing about being in Chicago was getting to spend time with the Love of My Life, Paula. She's my partner and my travel companion. 

Even though she may not initially be sure about going or doing the things I want to do but she goes along with me. That's what makes anywhere we go a lot of fun.  

I hope you enjoyed this series of posts. I know it's taken 4 times longer to write about it than it did to experience it but that's life. 

Thanks for the great 4-day weekend Chicago. I'm sure we'll be back someday. You're my kind of town. 

Weekend In Chicago: Day 4

The Brookfield Zoo

Tuesday was the last day of our extended weekend vacation in Chicago. We still had a tickets to the Shedd Aquarium on the Museum Campus but neither of us wanted to go back into downtown again. So our time in that part of the city was over. But we still planned on spending the day in one of the  suburbs. 

Paula and I travel well together. We always have. So packing up and checking out of the hotel was comfortably routine; almost automatic.

At the front desk I mentioned to the clerk that while we had no major problems during our stay; the room amenities and condition of some areas of the hotel left a something to be desired. 

I mentioned that a room in a 3 star hotel (the rating Four Points by Sheraton O'Hare received on Priceline.com) usually included a fridge and a microwave. We had to "upgrade" (aka pay $20 a night more) to get a room that included them.

I don't remember the desk clerk's exact response. It wasn't rude but it did convey an undisguised "take it or leave it" type of apathy. Because of that attitude we will probably never stay at that Four Points by Sheraton O'Hare hotel in Chicago again.

One more time we grabbed breakfast and something to drink at the BP gas station near the hotel. This convenience store was one of the better aspects of our vacation. More on that later in the final post in this series. 

Our plans for the day, other than heading back home, was to visit a zoo for a few hours. We found two in the area: The Lincoln Park Zoo and the Brookfield Zoo. 

Lincoln Park was free but required a return to the city just north of the downtown area, and was mainly intended for families with kids.  

From what I read during my trip planning, Brookfield zoo, although it charged admission, had a lot more that would be of interest to two adults than Lincoln Park. 

The 2 specific reasons we chose to go to Brookfield were: the dolphin show and the butterfly house.   

From the hotel, we drove about 11 miles south to the town of Brookfield. We arrived at the south gate entrance of the zoo (paying for parking, thankfully, for the last time this trip) just before noon. 

We stepped up to the ticket booth and discovered that the $15 ticket price I had seen on their website was just for "basic admission" into the zoo. To see the dolphins, the butterflies and do one other attraction that required a separate ticket we had to pay an additional $10 each.

Since the extra cost was the only way we were going to be able to do what we specifically came to do, I reluctantly paid the for the "upgraded" ticket. 

Just inside the south gate were a pair of lion statues and we could see a rather large fountain in the distance. 

Here's a close up of each of those. 

It was a beautiful warm sunny summer day; but because it was already the middle of the day not many of the animals were very active.  

Here's the zoo map. This will give you an idea of our path and the area we covered during our visit.  

Having entered the park at the south gate, we headed west. Stopping at the baboon habitat. There were a few of them sitting around on the rocks. They didn't seem to mind the heat. 

  














The dolphin show we had tickets were for wasn't until 2:30 so we had some time to walk around and see as many animals as we could. Here are some pictures of some of the animals we saw. 

Penguins

Reptiles 

Snoozing Polar Bear 

Giraffes

Two Totally Relaxed Lions

This next animal is one that neither Paula nor I had ever seen before. It is a black footed cat; the smallest feline species found in Africa. The zoo was in the process of introducing a trio of 6 month old kittens into their new habitat. 

They were very cute. Although they looked like playful and cuddly domestic house cats the placard outside their cage insisted otherwise. If you are interested in those differences you can find more information about the black footed cat on the internet. 

To us these cats looked like the Puss N' Boots character in the "Shrek" movies. We took a picture that shows this. See if you agree. 

We were at the top center of the zoo when we realized that it was time to head over to the Seven Seas area in northeast corner to get in line for the dolphin show. 

We were a bit hungry and decided to get a big soft pretzel to share. Luckily we were in an area where there was a counter service restaurant near by. (blogger's note: I wrote that last line with a bit of sarcasm. I think this zoo had more places to eat and buy souvenirs than any other we've ever visited. Listed on the back of the paper map were a dozen places to eat and 8 gift shops.)

I checked with someone at the guest services booth to make sure that we were headed in the right direction to get to the dolphin show. If we went the wrong way we'd be late and it was the last show of the day. 

We walked by the butterfly house and the carousel. As we passed it I regretted my choice of ticket options back at the front gate. A ride on the carousel was one of our options but I chose a visit to the children's petting zoo instead. Even though I knew we probably wouldn't go ever get there. I should have chosen the carousel. I would have definitely used that ticket. 

With only about 20 minutes to get to the show we couldn't take the time to stop and eat our pretzel. Good thing we didn't because when we got to the Seven Seas area, the line to get in was very long. We were about 100 yards from the entrance. 

But the theater held quite a few spectators. I am not very good at estimating crowds but I'd say it was close to 1000 people. 

Since we got in line so late we didn't have the choice of the best seats. We sat on the right side of the pool about 3 rows from the top of the arena. Here was our view. 

While waiting for the rest of the crowd to filter in and the show to start we finished the rest of our soft pretzel dipping it in the small cup of cheese I had gotten. (Don't judge us. We were on vacation and it was delicious). 

Also while we were waiting I took picture of my wife. Of all the shots I took of her during our vacation this is probably my favorite.  

As showtime drew closer the dolphins were swimming around in the pool playing with some yellow volleyballs. They were throwing them around in the water with their noses. 

Once everyone was seated the show began. The theme of the show was the dolphin Olympics. It started out with the "team" doing a variety of tricks. 

One of the "events" was a competition to see which dolphin could jump up out of the water to touch a ball tethered from the ceiling. I didn't get any video but Paula got some good still shots. 

Close...

Closer...

Got It !!!

It was a terrific show and I would have liked to have seen more. As expected we exited through the gift shop and then went down stairs to view the dolphins swimming underwater in their tank. 

We had just one more thing we wanted to do, go see the butterflies. After that we were ready to head home. 

The butterfly house was without a doubt Paula's favorite animal exhibit of the day. The "house" was more of an metal mesh Quonset hut. Inside the enclosure was a small garden with hundreds of butterflies. 

With I-phone and digital camera in hand Paula and I took many many pictures. So many in fact that I had a difficult time choosing which of them to include in this post. But here they are. 

Among the rules of the butterfly sanctuary was "don't touch the specimens." But during our visit several guests had butterflies land on them. 

This brings me to my favorite picture I took during our butterfly experience. As we were getting up off a bench to leave Paula got a visitor. Perhaps the attraction was the pattern on her shirt. 

After about 30 minutes in the butterfly garden we checked ourselves in the mirror looking for "hitchhikers" as required by the rules. The exit brought us out right next to a merchandise tent where they were selling stuff at 40% off. We browsed through it but didn't find anything we "couldn't live without". 

At this point we had seen all we wanted to see at the zoo and ready to head to the car. Since it's main station was right there we were decided to take the zoo tram to the south end of the grounds so we didn't have to walk. Also, it was one of the privileges included in our admission. 

We found a seat near the middle of the tram and waited. We didn't leave until at least 15 minutes later but neither the driver nor the guide gave a reason why.  

The tram was very boring. It went really slow. I mean slower than walking speed. Also the guide, an older gentleman giving narration over the on board PA system was improvising his narration. 

He was obviously knowledgeable and passionate about the zoo both past and present; but he was not very entertaining.  

The tram route took us to the north east part of the zoo before it turned south. Because of the distance and the speed the trip took us about 30 to 45 minutes. We could have walked to the gate in about 15. But we were tired and sitting down was a welcomed rest. (seems I've written those words quite often during this series doesn't it?)

The one good thing about the tram tour was that once it reached the south gate we were next to a Starbucks coffee shop. Paula wanted one for the road. With her iced mocha latte sweetened with a couple of packets of Splenda my wife and I headed out to the parking lot. 

This was not the best zoo we've ever been to but it wasn't the worst either. It was a nice way to spend our last day in the Chicago area. Seeing the dolphin show and butterfly garden was worth the extra charge for the admission.

The Brookfield Zoo encompasses 216 acres. That's more than 4 times the area of the Philadelphia zoo. Yet it's not a better zoo. Here's some of the reasons why. 

The layout was a bit complicated and confusing. I didn't notice it until I was doing research for this post that it was shaped like and abstract map of the United States. If I had thought of it that way during our visit it would have been a whole lot easier to navigate. 

I've already mention the over abundance of food counters and souvenir shops. But now I realize that the Brookfield Zoo is more than twice the size of Disney's Magic Kingdom. So in comparison the number of counter service restaurants and of merchandising outlets is not excessive at all. 

Blogger's note: Just in case you are wondering the zoo is less than 1/2 the size of Disney's Animal Kingdom, which is 500 acres. 

One of the biggest negative aspects for me was that several of the buildings that you walked through to see the animals smelled really badly. Now I know that animals have a tendency to have a rather unpleasant and sometimes pungent odor to them. But it was stronger and more frequent at this zoo than the others we've ever visited. If we ever went there again I'd probably  avoid any of the buildings and remain in the "open air" areas.  

But overall we will fondly remember our visit to the Brookfield Zoo. 

It was about 5:30 when we turned on to Interstate 55 and headed south toward Indiana heading for Kentucky. 

Our time in Chicago was officially over. We had a 6 hour drive ahead of us but it would end up with us back at home and asleep in our own bed. That's where we wanted to be.