13 April 2009

Q: Wanna Know What's Torture?

A: Going to Chicago's Brookfield Zoo on a glorious, sunny Saturday afternoon and leaving the camera at home.

Yep, we traveled north to my mother-in-law's home Friday evening and as we merged onto I-57 I remembered the camera. Everything else was packed: Easter goodies for the kinder (my 2 plus 2 nieces and 2 cousins), clothes (except I forgot dress socks for Evan), birthday gifts for my sister-in-law, and the assorted flotsam and jetsam that comes along for the ride (Evan and Flynn's blankies, stuffed animals, pillows, etc.). Everything except the camera, the one item I almost always bring.

Bugger.

So instead of viewing what were sure to be awesome photos, you'll have to use your imaginations.

And of course the polar bears were surprisingly active, as were the gorilla babies (chasing each other all over their environment, one running back to its mother when the play got a little too rough - my mother-in-law and I could've watched them all day), a tiny cotton-top tamarin was not six feet from me, just hanging out on a branch over the path through the primate exhibit. He was so cool, chirping away at his admirers. A grizzly bear was curled up asleep next to the window looking into his open-air enclosure. He was hugging a traffic cone.

I tried not to agonize over the missed photo opportunities.

We also walked through the new dinosaur exhibit, Dinos Alive!. It had just opened last weekend and displayed 18 animatronic dinos ranging in size from a massive Ruyang Yellow River dino to the smallish Baryonyx. My little boy was in dinosaur heaven. Flynn, not so much, but afterwards proclaimed to have enjoyed it. Evan was disappointed there was no Velociraptor, but quickly got over it and LOVED walking down the path through the robot dino habitats, four of which zoogoers were allowed to manipulate from interactive remote-control panels. I wish I had a picture of Evan working the Allosaurus controls. Or one of the look on his face as he triggered the motion sensor on the Baryonyx. He must have jumped a foot into the air as the puppet moved and growled.

Gah.

I think I need to leave a camera in the car at all times.

2 comments:

Quigs78 said...

For Christmas, I got a little camera that I could keep in my bag all the time. Our regular camera is huge and I was too lazy to lug it around all the time, but I wanted to get the random cute pics of the kids whenever I could. Best purchase ever, I swear.

We're planning a trip to Brookfield this summer with my sister. I like that one much better than the Lincoln Park Zoo.

The Fearless Freak said...

Cell phone cameras are super handy. My camera is a DSLR and is huge so I don't lug it around for general stuff. Cell pictures aren't the best quality but they work for blogging :)