A Trek to the Zoo

Captain’s Log, Stardate 20120423. My iPhone and I went on a little stroll this afternoon. It was bright, sunny and the perfect temperature of 55°F. I started out along a path on Stockton and came across this little marker.

At first I thought that was cool. I knew The Moody Church was sitting atop an old beach, but seeing as how I live across the street from it, in a 42-story highrise, I’m not so sure I like the idea of its foundation being sand. Well, at least I’m on a low enough floor that I could jump out of my window if the need arises.

Anyway, onto the park! Yesterday, I took the eastern path around the little pond, but iPhone insisted on taking the western path today. As we neared the enclosed pond, iPhone jumped out of my pocket to snatch another image. Pretty boring, really.

Behind this sign you can see another highrise, undoubtedly built on sand as well. And the bright blue sky. No clouds anywhere today. I made my way to the first bench and sat down to enjoy the view and rest my little toes. Here’s the view iPhone picked up:

Notice the fence. That’s to keep the geese from attacking the humans. Good thing the geese can’t fly.

Wait… scratch that.

Anyway, here’s a closer view of the horsey dude in the background:

On a future walk I’ll climb up that little hill and find out who that is.

Now here’s where things really get interesting. Or not. Check this out:

Yup, a red barn. Smack dab in the middle of the city. Well, not really the middle, but sort of north of the middle. And if you look really, really close, you can see a cow on the right hand side. A real cow. Not a statue like that horsey dude. Note the white fence. I’m pretty sure that’s to keep the cows from attacking the humans. Or maybe the geese.

After loitering for a bit, I got up and continued my trek northwards. There was a nice little bridge (that I forgot to take a picture of) but here’s kind of a cool shot from the bridge:

Second building from the right is my building. Built on sand. You can probably identify the Hancock. And maybe Trump Tower if you’re familiar with the architecture. Both of them are probably built on sand too. Anyway, the pond had green floaty things in it. I don’t think it’s seaweed since, like, it’s not a sea. Oh! To the very left you see this weird wavy building – I have a couple of shots of it coming up. I have no idea what it is or why it’s there. It’s probably where the geese hang out to plan their takeover of the world once all of the skyscrapers fall into Lake Michigan.

But I digress. Again. So anyway, I crossed the bridge to one of the entrances to the Lincoln Park Zoo. Free zoo. In the north-middle of the city. They have real animals. I only ventured around the southern end of the zoo since I was still worried about the quicksand under my feet.

The first animals I saw were some camels. Big camels.

They were all hanging out in the shade. At least they’re used to sand. I’m not sure about these alpacas. They might be, though they look a little too furry to be desert-type creatures. But then look at all of the layers the sand people wore in Star Wars. They had to be suffocating.

Here’s a double-humped camel. He’s wayyyyy in the back, though nicely centered in the shot. I couldn’t find a “zoom” for my iPhone camera.

So after circling the south end of the zoo (the zebras and deer weren’t cooperating for pictures), I headed back to the walking path. And here’s that weird, wavy building.

From inside:

It’s purpose: unknown. But I’m pretty sure it’s built on sand. As a matter of fact, that’s its color, too.

After I made it out of the weird, wavy building, I walked past more geese, the horsey dude and made my way back home. I did stop to take a picture of these trees. The green leaves looked almost like neon. I wish it would have turned out like that in the picture. It’s still cool though. And there are still no clouds in the sky.

Today’s walk took about an hour and a half, but that includes stopping to see the animals and to make sure I wasn’t walking into a quicksand pit.

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All photos were taken by me, Letricia Brooks. Feel free to use them for whatever you want. Attribution or a link back to my site would be nice, but not required.