Chicago, Day 4: Wednesday, July 13

Wednesday was the coolest day of the week and the high was only in the upper 70's. We thought this might be the best day to tackle the Lincoln Park Zoo, since it was so cool. We were hoping the animals would also be more active. The zoo didn't open until 10, but we hopped on the bus and went to Lincoln Park a little early to visit the Green City Farmers' Market, which was pretty awesome. We ended up buying some cheeses from this booth from Wisconsin. They had this cheese that you grill and it doesn't get really oozy like most cheeses. We bought some of that, as well as some raw white cheddar and garlic cheese spread, which was amazing. Anya liked tasting the different kinds of cheese and so did I! We also bought some pretzel bread and another kind of bread to eat with the cheese bread along with lunch. There was a booth from Michigan that had sweet cherries, so we decided to get some cherries as well. Then it was off to the zoo!

The zoo was very small but they had a lot of good exhibits. Even though it was small, it was a good size for a small child. We went to a sea otter show and then saw some big cats (lion, tiger, and jaguar), giraffes, monkeys, and gorillas. What we liked about the zoo is that usually it was glass that separated you from the animals so Anya could get right up to the glass and peer into the exhibit. The lions were actually sleeping right up at the glass so Anya was able to get super close to them, which she loved! We visited the gorillas after eating our picnic lunch. They had several of them, including one silverback gorilla who was huge! We happened to walk into the exhibit when they were doing a presentation about testing they do with the gorillas. Testers had computers rolled up to the gate and the gorillas were supposed to put things in sequential order and when they got it right, they got a treat. It was kind of neat to see. Unfortunately, Anya slept through most of this exhibit.

At that point, we headed back to the hotel to refresh ourselves. We decided to try a second pizza place, Lou Malnati's, which is way better than Giordano's. I had signed up for their online membership so we had a coupon for a free appetizer if we spent $20. We got calamari as an appetizer and treated ourselves to beer with our deep dish pizza. If anyone goes to Chicago, we would highly recommend this place!

After dinner, we went back to Navy Pier for a sunset cruise on the water, though we had some time to do a little souvenir shopping beforehand. Anya did not do so well on the cruise. For one thing, it was really cold and we hadn't expect it to be as cold as it was. But that didn't seem to bother her. She wanted to be down and crawling around but we weren't supposed to be up and moving while the boat was moving. We finally took her below the deck and let her walk around the benches and then she was happy. She would tap Eric on the knee and the scurry off, looking back to make sure he was watching her. She kept doing that, trying to get Eric to chase her. The actual cruise itself was alright but nothing special. We thought there would be at least a little narration (like there was in the sunset cruise we took in Saugatuck last summer), but there was nothing. The sunset was beautiful and it was neat to see the skyline from the water but the rest of the cruise was mediocre at best. Besides the lack of narration, they played really bad country music during the cruise. I'm not saying anything negative about country music, but I thought for a cruise like this, it should have been something bluesy, jazzy, or big band to reflect the bustle of a big city. There are tons of songs they could have used that are about "the city" or "night and day" or "sunset." I just thought their music could have complemented the tour with a little more planning.

After the tour, we headed back downtown to find a snack, but unfortunately, nothing was open that late except for Starbucks. We ended up getting a snack and a frappachino from there and headed back to the hotel. Anya was asleep in the stroller at this point, so we were able to get her to bed pretty quickly.