Brookfield has a beautiful zoo with so much to see and do. I'm fairly certain it was our hottest day at a zoo to date. Thank goodness for plenty of shady spots and the misters all over the place that kept us cool. Tropic World was our first stop and one of our favorite parts of the day. You walk along a path at treetop level, like you're at the top of the jungle canopy. We saw all kinds of monkeys and apes—including a couple babies and two squabbling young gorillas. We got to see a cute young giraffe and finally some snow leopards that weren't asleep. The dolphin show was closed for the summer, but we weren't too bummed knowing we'd be at Sea World again in three weeks. We enjoyed the bear grottoes—they had pretty much every kind of bear there is. The new Dinosaur exhibit looked like fun, but we're more into living, breathing animals, so we skipped it. Wiping the sweat from our brows, we happily piled into the van and headed into the city.

View photos of our trip to this zoo