One of the older zoos in America is the Brookfield Zoo which first opened in 1934. It is on the west side of Chicago, is well worth the visit, and we took a trip there one hot August day with Ann and Yuliya. Disclaimer— the two wildest and scariest animals I saw on that day are these two that I took a picture of through the waterfall…..
Visiting the zoo is rather like going to see the staging ground for Noah’s Ark. All these animals lying around waiting for some action, or at least for some food! It’s a difficult thing to keep a large zoo up, and keep creating new exhibits that attract more crowds. Brookfield has done pretty well, but it needs some upgrades in terms of the buildings etc.
Here’s a hippo enjoying wallowing in the mud. I’ve met some reporters rather like that…
It was quite hot, and some at the zoo found it unbearable…..for example…
It was so hot the baboons had simply said ‘to heck with it, I don’t care what people think, I’m sticking my head in this cool log and letting the rest all hang out’
Oddly, the penguins didn’t seem to be bothered, but they kept looking up hoping for ice cream….
The warthogs were too busy rooting around to worry about the heat, but then they didn’t have on thick fur coats like the bears.
And then there were the turtles who had simply retreated to within their naturally air conditioned shells….
And then of course there were the camels who were saying ‘Heat? What heat? You must be kidding. This is Chicago not the Sahara!! Besides, there are shade trees.’
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