Hello everyone!

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PAKMan

Well-Known Member
Hey there! I wanted to introduce myself. My name is PAK Man, and I'm a longtime Zoo Chat lurker (probably been lurking for at least 6-7 years) who finally decided to join and create an account for myself!

A few things about me. I'm a longtime zoo lover from the Chicago area who recently decided to create a zoo bucket list and visit as many zoos as I can. Lincoln Park Zoo is my most-frequented zoo, but over the course of my life I've also been to Brookfield Zoo (though I haven't visited since 1996-1997), Shedd Aquarium, Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo, Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines, Columbus Zoo, National Zoo, Milwaukee County Zoo and Minnesota Zoo. San Diego Zoo is #1 on my Bucket List, but I have plenty of others I'd love to visit as well, and I want to re-visit the other zoos I've been to, most of which I haven't visited in over 20 years (put it this way; Hsing-Hsing was still alive when I visited the National Zoo).

I'm looking forward to participating in Zoo Chat!
 
Glad to have someone from Chicago, an under-represented city on ZooChat. I am surprised that you live there but have not been to Brookfield in over two decades. Is there a reason you don't like it compared to Lincoln Park, or is it just an issue of not having transportation to make it out there?
 
Arizona Docent said:
Glad to have someone from Chicago, an under-represented city on ZooChat. I am surprised that you live there but have not been to Brookfield in over two decades. Is there a reason you don't like it compared to Lincoln Park, or is it just an issue of not having transportation to make it out there?
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It's mostly an issue of distance/price. At that time, I was only 8 years old (my sister was 6) so I was beholden to whatever my parents did. I live nearly 40 minutes away from Brookfield Zoo, which charges for parking and admission. My parents couldn't really afford to pay for two adults and two children to go that far away, plus my parents hate walking long distances. Compare that to Lincoln Park, which we could get to in 15-20 minutes, has free admission and is a relatively small zoo, the decision on which one to go to was easy for my parents.

I ended up moving out of state for 12 years and the opportunity to go to Brookfield never came up. When I moved back to Chicago last summer, I decided that I was going to go visit (I'd even visited their website and calculated, mathematically, when the most inexpensive time to go would have been - I would have gone solo so I'd just be paying for myself) but then COVID happened.

Believe it or not, I actually remember the last time I went there - it wasn't long after the toddler fell in Tropic World and the gorilla saved him and I begged my parents to go so we could see the gorilla.
 
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