The Brookfield Zoo

I happened to be in the library on the right day to score the pass for the Brookfield Zoo--just as the weather started getting really nice.  Score!  We were excited to take our little girl, and to check out the zoo (neither of us had been).  It was totally fun!  (But what's with charging $9 to park?  Seriously.)

It's a pretty neat zoo.  It's set up so that many of the animals are housed, which was nice because the day we went there was just a little nip in the air if you were outside for too long, so dodging indoors worked out really well for us.  They have lots of really great exhibits.

I really liked the giraffes, I've never seen any so up close before!

But the real highlight for me was the primate house.  Oh.  My.  Heck.

When I was about 8 years old I watched Gorillas in the Mist and became completely fascinated with monkeys and apes--in fact I spent a better part of the next decade wanting to study them.  This house wasn't like most displays, where the monkeys and apes are all in a big box indoor or outdoor and you look through a window.  Not at this zoo, though!  They have a huge house built for the primates, and you view them without a barrier from a couple of stories up.  It was so cool!

The gorillas were the best part.  They have them on their own little mountain and there is a walkway that goes all the way around it, from varied elevations so that you can see them from the top level or from above.  It was awesome!

It was very, very cool.  I'm pretty sure that I could have stayed in there all day.

The zoo was packed full of fun and interesting animals--we highly recommend it!