We got up nice and early (forgetting that we gained an hour between South Bend and Chicago) and left South Bend under cloudy skies, as it had rained off and on through the night. The traffic was extremely light and we made great time all the way into downtown, up the 41 along Lake Michigan and into parking at the free Lincoln Park Zoo.
We toured everything there. Sariah's highlight was the polar bear exhibit, which she wanted to see for months since a book in preschool. Tim and Sam enjoyed the monkey and ape (apes don't have tails) exhibits. Solinda loved the giraffes up close in the indoor feeding area and Nathan was impressed with all of the activity of the tiger and rhinos. We ate a good lunch and very impressed at how the designers set up the Park Place cafe to be so family friendly and still serve so many people at once.
After over 4 hours around the zoo, we started to head out and then stopped for 30 minutes to throw football and rest...we did have to avoid lots of bird scat though...
After only a 30-minute drive through some sticky traffic (Nathan expected an hour), we arrived at US Cellular Field, the home of the Chicago White Sox. We were so early and the price for parking is the same everywhere that we parked in the first row of cars out of the gate, a distance of 20-25 yards. After waiting an hour and a half to get in the front gates, we were very impressed with the stadium. To the north was a great view of downtown and the south showed the South Side night skyline. The game was a good one against the Orioles. Tim was happy that Nelson Cruz hit his 32nd home run. The 7th and 8th innings were full of excitement as the White Sox scored 2 runs with 2 outs and then the Orioles came back and scored 5 runs with 2 outs - all with the bases empty to begin with! Nick Markakis also robbed a home run that would have given the White Sox the lead!! The boys also got to sprint against Podsednik, hit some balls and field grounders out in left field. They have the biggest and best free kids' world of baseball activities in any of the 19 stadiums we have visited thus far! We were able to head directly and got out of the parking lot and onto the interstate within 2 minutes!
We drove about 45 minutes up to the northwest corner of Chicago for a short stay in the city of Elgin with early departure in the morning...
We toured everything there. Sariah's highlight was the polar bear exhibit, which she wanted to see for months since a book in preschool. Tim and Sam enjoyed the monkey and ape (apes don't have tails) exhibits. Solinda loved the giraffes up close in the indoor feeding area and Nathan was impressed with all of the activity of the tiger and rhinos. We ate a good lunch and very impressed at how the designers set up the Park Place cafe to be so family friendly and still serve so many people at once.
After over 4 hours around the zoo, we started to head out and then stopped for 30 minutes to throw football and rest...we did have to avoid lots of bird scat though...
After only a 30-minute drive through some sticky traffic (Nathan expected an hour), we arrived at US Cellular Field, the home of the Chicago White Sox. We were so early and the price for parking is the same everywhere that we parked in the first row of cars out of the gate, a distance of 20-25 yards. After waiting an hour and a half to get in the front gates, we were very impressed with the stadium. To the north was a great view of downtown and the south showed the South Side night skyline. The game was a good one against the Orioles. Tim was happy that Nelson Cruz hit his 32nd home run. The 7th and 8th innings were full of excitement as the White Sox scored 2 runs with 2 outs and then the Orioles came back and scored 5 runs with 2 outs - all with the bases empty to begin with! Nick Markakis also robbed a home run that would have given the White Sox the lead!! The boys also got to sprint against Podsednik, hit some balls and field grounders out in left field. They have the biggest and best free kids' world of baseball activities in any of the 19 stadiums we have visited thus far! We were able to head directly and got out of the parking lot and onto the interstate within 2 minutes!
We drove about 45 minutes up to the northwest corner of Chicago for a short stay in the city of Elgin with early departure in the morning...
No comments:
Post a Comment