The thing about getting on a train when it’s still dark, having gotten up at Oh Dear God AM, is that you tend to hit your seat & sleep. Or at least I do.

I did find that the overhead racks, on this train at least, were big enough to hold Big Red with ease, which simplified things enormously.

I also found that it’s possible to doze off partway through using the Facebook app on your phone, and wake up to find it finishing the transition into French Language.
Didn’t expect that.

Back at the Freehand Hostel, in a lower bunk this time.
They’re marginally easier to get into, but still not that dignified.
Not sure whether it was just this bunk, but the ‘roof’ was decorated with pages from a road atlas, which was fun.

I didn’t get up to much in the few days I was here before my train to Seattle.
I mean, I’m sure I did something, but I’m not sure what it was. I’ll check the paper diary, and see whether it was anything worth mentioning. It could have been something as dull as ‘enjoying non-muggy weather’, which was fun at the time, but not exactly travel-blog worthy.

Had a couple of roommates; Dale, who was here for a Cubs game or two, and was having what looked like a hell of a good time, and probably John from Germany, an exchange student who was seeing a bit more of the US before heading back home.

Not sure whether this photo came out all that well, but there was low-lying cloud obscuring buildings, which was quite fun.

On a Sunday which threatened rain but held off on actually delivering it where such a thing could be inconvenient, we went to The Henry Ford, which combines a ‘standard’ museum with a … living history museum?

Greenfield Village is a bit tricky to describe.

We ought to know more about the families who founded this nation, and how they lived. One way to do that is to reconstruct as nearly as possible the conditions under which they lived.
~ Henry Ford

It started as a way to show how things used to be, and there’s a certain element of nostalgia running through it.
But it’s also a collection of mostly American history; The Wright Brothers bicycle shop is here.
And it has working glassblowers, weavers, steam locomotives, tinsmiths, etc.

We had a go at pushing the turntable, which was surprisingly easy for something 70′ long that weighs 48 tonnes. Once it’s moving, it wants to keep moving, and the only real effort was in the starting & the stopping.
The Docent in the photo, besides having his mustache waxed into points, talked about having turned up to his job interview with a photo of six-year-old him at the opening of the Roundhouse. In his day job, he’s a trainee history teacher.

Various pictures inside the roundhouse, which is operating as intended, as a storage & maintenance facility.
Also, it has a cat, probably named Marshall, who takes care of the rodent population.
And occasionally visits other parts of the Village.
And once set off the alarms at the Wright House by sneaking in and falling asleep on the bed.

You can wander around under 100 tonnes of locomotive, which is a new one on me; I’ve never seen one from this angle before.

The Docents are all very into their area; The powerhouse guy was partway through a piece on DC vs. AC & 110V vs. 220V when we got there, and it was pretty technical, but also interesting.
Hadn’t known, for example, that in the early days the only thing you could use electricity for was light, as there were no appliances yet.

On the basis of some threatening weather, we moved inside, to the Henry Ford Museum.

Unsurprisingly, they had cars.

They also have the only Dymaxion House, originally assembled from two prototypes & lived in for 20 years, then rebuilt into an approximation of the intended house by the museum folk after it was donated.
The folks who lived in it had it as an add-on to a more conventional structure, and it looked liked someone had materialised a UFO in a regular house.

There are some spots left unfinished, to show off the central support & modular bathroom.

The idea was that it’d be a two bedroom two bathroom home, with fireplace, motorised revolving storage system in place of shelves (a loop of shelf-baskets inside the wall), and a dust-proof hat-rack in the front hall closet, because that’s what every house needs.

Surprisingly for this place, not the original.
It’s a replica built for the 100th anniversary.
Bigger than I’d imagined; All the stories mention how small it was, and how the first flight was shorter than the wingspan of a 747, and so on, but … it’s pretty big.
I’d also not known why they chose Kitty Hawk as a location; Turns out it’s the town nearest to what is now the town of Kill Devil Hills, where there is a beach with predictable winds, flat surfaces, and not a lot to run into.
There was a Docent in the Wright Bicycle Shop who was able to explain what looked like a photo taken of the Flyer in mid-air from another aircraft, which made me wonder how it was taken; Turns out they’d launched from a dune or bluff, past the camera, and what looked like a house & barn in fields was actually a couple of tents on a beach.

And here’s the bus Rosa Parks sat down in.
I’m amazed that they kept it, or at least were able to identify it.

The Docent did point out the specific seat; I did not sit in it. Didn’t feel right that I should do so.

Took this one just because of the styling of the Texaco truck there; At some point, I shall look up what it was for.
~googles~
OK, tanker truck. Very stylish tanker truck.

And finally, a locomotive so damn big that I couldn’t photograph it in a way that captured it’s size.

The structure to the left of the engine is stairs leading up to the (enormous) cab.
The little pale smudge above that structure is a person’s head & shoulders as they walk in; I could stand comfortably in there, and had to reach up to touch the ceiling.

And finally, on the way back, a drink at Atwater In The Park, a brewery in a (former) church.
I had a cider, though, in deference to the city, it was their Detroit Cider.

Most of the Detroit content, to be honest, is in the Henry Ford post.
What’s in here are a few photos and some things I noticed.

On the way back from The Henry Ford, we stopped in at Atwater in the Park, a craft brewery in a former church.
I had a cider, though, in deference to it being Detroit, it was their ‘Detroit’ cider.

Sitting on a shelf in among the games was something I recognised, and have actually played; For the record, that is my arm, and not a leg or something.

The process of leaving Detroit involved not leaving from Detroit, but rather from Dearborn.
One of the folks who very kindly drove to Kalamazoo to meet me, arranged housing while there, and took me back to stay at their house, also got up at Oh Dear God in the morning to take me to the train station near their work; Dearborn.

The station, which is new, is rather nice; They’re going for a design that reminds you of classic stations, with the arches & stonework.

And because it wouldn’t be a post about Detroit without mentioning it; Yes, there were places where one side of the road looked like a different city than the other.
In at least one case it’s because it actually is a different city, but it’s sort of jarring to see.

Other parts of the city put me in mind of, oddly, Taumarunui in 2004, when I was there for a job interview.
You had immaculately maintained places next to houses which were only held up by the paint, and this had the same vibe, with the amplitude turned up until the knob fell off.

I took no pictures, partly because we were in a car, but mostly because there enough pictures out there of Detroit for “City Falling Apart” stories.
Something I wish I’d had the camera ready for were community get-togethers we saw; Clusters of those pop-up gazebo things & people trying to get a … something … happening.

My original scheme for getting to Detroit would have involved arriving at 0030h, then catching a taxi to a hotel, and meeting up with the Detroit folks in the morning.
While the words ‘stupid and insane’ didn’t get used, there was a vibe, so we met up in Klamazoo instead.

I should point out that, until recently, I didn’t know it was a real place. I’d heard the name, but it sounds like one of those names they make up for children’s books or to sound funny & interesting, like Timbuktu or Boise or Ottumwa or Te Hihi.
Turns out that I wasn’t the only one in NZ who thought this, thanks to the wonder of Facebook.
Also thanks to Facebook, Bell’s was recommended by Mikey Mason, doubling the things I knew about the place in one easy step.

This isn’t the Kalamazoo Station; It’s Niles, Michigan, but it has a similar feel to it.
At the actual station I was too busy trying to lug Big Red around to take pictures.

The friends from Detroit had lined up a B&B, which turned out to be rather nice and quite historic. With a very friendly dog with an infinite supply of dog-slobber.

Dinner that night was at the Olde Peninsula Brewpub & Restaurant.
There’s a theme here, by the way, with brewpubs, because you don’t seem to be able to throw a rock in Kalamazoo without hitting one.

Lunch the next day, after we wandered around and saw the various historic houses of Kalamazoo, was at a different brewpub, chosen on the basis of “which of the three we can see from here should we go to?”, and was Gonzo’s Biggdogg Brewing Company.

This thing was sitting in a park, by a wee river/canal which they’re having a good go at gentrifying.
No idea what it is, other than “One Of Those”.

There was also this classic, and probably original, piece of Americana.

And then there was Bell’s.

Somewhere along the way we stopped into the Kalamazoo public library, which had the whole community centre thing happening, with a secondhand bookstore & legal references & the like.
There was also a copy of a book I’d not known existed, by an artist whose work I’ve seen around; Simon Stålenhag.
Tales From The Loop is the book, and it’s … a cross between an art book and an SF story. Maybe a bit like the old Terran Trade Authority books?

Along with driving & walking around Kalamazoo, we also took a trip to South Haven, via a side-of-the-road rib joint.

The odd thing about South Haven, for me, is that it looks like the sort of marina & breakwater & so on that I’m used to, but it’s subtly wrong because there’s no allowance for tides. Lake Michigan is sufficiently large that it resembles a calm blue ocean, or at least it did that day.

On the way out of town, there was a stop for Sweetwater’s Donuts, which we’d been told were the best donuts in town.

They were pretty damn good, and well worth getting wet for.

My accommodation for this one is the Freehand Chicago, a hostel which is trying to ride that line between Hostel & Hotel.
In practice, this means that there’s a coffee place and cocktail bar on the ground floor, an ensuite bathroom in every room and towels which are replace approximately daily, 4-bed air-conditioned dorms with non-squeaking non-shaking wooden bunks & privacy curtains, and a general feel of very carefully designed bohemian charm.

It’s in a 17-story building, so the stairwell (yes, there’s a lift or two, but it was often faster to walk down) is impressive.

At one point during the stay a letter appeared in the room to lket us know that they were upgrading the door lock system, and that we’d need to get our prox-cards re-keyed at some point. I wasn’t sure when that point would be, exactly, and got a false alarm when my card no longer worked in the elevator, but that turned out to be because I’d extended my stay.
This was how I knew;

Also; It’s worth mentioning that the prox-cards themselves were fun.

There were, over the time I was there, a range of room-mates, from India, Sudan/Oman/Canada (one guy), Sweden, Germany, USA (briefly, she moved rooms after only a few hours¹), and Germany again.

¹ We (A woman from Germany, the second German to have that bunk, and I) did get concerned that she’d shown up, grabbed her bag from her bed (she’d left it there earlier, when I was the only other one in the room) , and left again with a “see you later”, having asked about locks for the lockers. Then never showed up again.
If something had happened to her outside of the hostel, with her gear with her, be it foul play or bad luck, it could be a really long time before anyone knew she was gone. It’s the big downside of travel & transient roommates, I think.
I enquired when I checked out, and it turned out that she’d reported that there was something wrong with the bed², according to the hostel management system, so she’d been moved to another room.

² I’m wondering whether it was more of a ‘something wrong with the room-mates’ issue.
Could be that she’d not realised that she’d booked a mixed dorm.

Soooo, Chicago.
I tried for a shot with the Chicago Tribune building in the background.
Managed it, but it’s not like the lettering is as readable as I’d hoped for.

Said building has stones from all around the world, and in at least one case not from this world at all, embedded in it.
There’s no specific mention of the stones having been made off with while nobody was looking, but it’s a fun thought; Valiant reporters nicking stones under cover of darkness, and smuggling them back to their HQ.
But to what sinister end?

And could these be the poor unfortunates who returned stoneless?

Well, no.
They’re outside a completely different building.

I decided to re-visit the Field Museum, and because I’m dim, I walked there.
On a hot sunny day.
In jeans.
Because I’m clever.

As such, the very energetic fountain (which can be seen in one of the boat trip photos I took) was a welcome break from the heat; That mist plume goes a really long way,

There were many things to see in the museum, including Terracotta Warriors, a soil’s-eye-view of … well, soil, and a 3D movie about Sue the T-Rex.
Who has definitely spotted those people.

There was the finest cuisine Chicago had to offer.

There’s Navy Pier, which … Is basically an elongated food court with a convention centre at the end and a big-ass ferris wheel on top.
I met someone from Austin, TX, at the free breakfast in the hostel who was in town for a gardening convention on Navy Pier, and had ended up at the Freehand because a room was cheaper by far than any of the nearby hotels.

The Illinois State Flag is rather letting the side down here; Stars & Stripes and Chicago flag are doing their bit for visibility, and Illinois … not so much.

The building out there is not a mirage, magical faerie pavillion, or in Michigan; It’s the intake structure for the water supply, placed far out into the lake in an effort, back when this was more of an issue, to have less of the city’s output in it’s input.

And there is one hell of a view from the end of the pier, looking back, if you can get the light right.
I’m pretty happy with this one.

I did a bunch of wandering around; Never did use the metropolitan rail system.
Thanks to it being as humid as all hell, sticking to the shade became important, so river walkways were my friend.

This cake, I’m assuming, marks a battle between an experimental submarine and a previously unknown species of giant freshwater octopus, presumably out on Lake Michigan.

I’m guessing it happened during one of the two World’s Fairs they had here, and which are represented on the flag with a red star each; No point in doubling-up on the stars if they happened at the same time and were related events.

This was mentioned during a boat trip I took;
The city ran the 1933 World’s Fair for two years. It was the Depression, and the thing was bringing in people and money and jobs.

Originally, the fair was scheduled only to run until November 12, 1933, but it was so successful that it was opened again to run from May 26 to October 31, 1934.
The fair was financed through the sale of memberships, which allowed purchases of a certain number of admissions once the park was open. More than $800,000 was raised in this manner as the country came out of the Great Depression. A $10 million bond was issued on October 28, 1929, the day before the stock market crashed. By the time the fair closed in 1933, half of these notes had been retired, with the entire debt paid by the time the fair closed in 1934.
For the first time in American history, an international fair had paid for itself. In its two years, it had attracted 48,769,227 visitors.

Then there was the day it rained.

This was very exciting; There was even thunder & lightning.
Some of this I heard, and some I saw, when it became apparent that the dickhead in the bunk under mine was just going to keep hitting ‘snooze’ on his cellphone alarm, so I got up.

It was raining a lot; I got … not quite soaked, but in the ‘do I need a dry shirt?’ territory, by walking 2½ sides of a block while trying to stay undercover.

The day I visited “The Bean”, sometimes known as the Cloud Gate.
It’s fantastic for taking self-portraits, as many people here are demonstrating.

Another day I wandered along the Magnificent Mile, to see what it was.

Here’s a hint; There’s a bunch of shops.

At the end of it, however, there’s a beach, which I wasn’t expecting.
Or particularly dressed for.
You can’t see it in these pictures, because I was mostly going for “what a nice day”, but trust me, there was sand, people swimming, people pushing each other off the edge you can see there, a beach bar, …

This building?

I photographed this because of memories of all of the McGraw-Hill titles various co-workers & I shifted, ordered, sourced, and occasionally sold, while working at bookstores.

Looks like this is the only photo I took of the Freehand Hostel, and I think I was trying to photograph the retro ice-cream truck on the other side of the intersection.
Anyway, it’s the dark brick building with the circles & quasi smiley faces on it.

Here’s the lock between the Chicago River & Lake Michigan.
There was constant upflow from somewhere inside that area with markers around it, which I’m guessing will have to do with the operation of the lock.

While I was down in the area (waiting for my boat trip, and also sorting out the Kalamazoo trip, by which I mean “going with the much better ideas of friends”) I found a map of Chicago.
The Freehand is in there, on Ohio Street.

And here’s Navy Pier.
And the water plant next door.

There was also … whatever this is.

This last image requires some context, so, … Here’s a link to a news article from Sweden.

Sex pigs halt traffic after laser attack on Pokémon teens

My response to said article may well be my most “Approved Of By Total Strangers” comment on social media to date.

Back in 2012 I did an Architectural Cruise, so this time I did the River & Lake version.

It included some of the same content for the river portion, on the grounds that it’s right there, and there is nothing else to talk about.

Yes, I did try to take a US Flag Selfie.
And what of it?

The riverside walk has trees, and benches, and many many places who’d like to sell you things.
It’s really quite nice, particularly on blisteringly hot days when the humidity is making you feel like you’re breathing a mattress.

Something I noticed on the walk down to said riverside walk past the multi-level roads was what I can only describe as a Homeless Encampment, off the side of the pedestrian ramp & running alongside Lower Wacker Dr, more or less sheltered from the rain & sun. Not too bad a spot, from the look of it.
In Summer.
According to the evening doorman at the hostel, or more accurately at the cocktail bar in the ground floor of the hostel, utterly miserable, bordering on lethal, in winter.

I’d also like to point out that the “RUMP” on the Trump tower wasn’t intentional.
That said, having noticed the line-up, there was no way I was going to move to avoid taking the shot.

The Chicago River once flowed into Lake Michigan, and along with it, all of the quite literal shit they dumped into the river.
So they reversed the flow of the river, and all of their crap goes the other way now.
There are locks on the entrance to the lake – My first time travelling through a set of locks, so I took many photos, most of which are identical, and some utterly underwhelming video.

Behold!
Water!!

Navy Pier, as seen from a different angle!

I’m assuming that all the US flags are there in cases of lost Canadian boaters, so that they know they’ve gone way too far South.
Part of a reciprocal arrangement, as seen with the recent Port Huron Float Down Incident.

I’m pretty happy with this picture.
If it wasn’t for whatever that building with the crane is, it’d have even more of a Gates of Argonath vibe.

Somewhat like Edinburgh, Chicago, or it’s tour guides, like to bring up the horrible bits of the cities history, or at least the unsavory bits.
Things like “Al Capone used to drink at the penthouse speakeasy up there”.
Or “The Great Chicago Fire crossed the river because there was so much shit in it that the surface burned”.

After the fire burned out, they found that the only things left were the facilities to get things into & out of the city.
This worked out pretty well, since architects & companies started to come to Chicago to build new buildings & headquarters and the like on their brand-new & slightly smoking clean slate.

Turns out that one of the advantages of traveling with other people is that they take photos too.
Lots of them.

Thank You, Steven!

Brace Yourselves.

Here are some decent shots of the mirror maze.

As I said before, I was really impressed.
They’ve done everything they can to make it difficult to tell Mirror from Non-Mirror. I honestly can’t tell whether that’s a hallway in front or not, and I’m not at all sure where the kid in the yellow shirt is.

And I’m putting in this next picture because I rather like it.

One of the oldest … exhibits? … dating back to 1933, is about coal mining.
You’re taken up, down, and through a coal mine; Specifically Old Ben No. 17, which they relocated from Southern Illinois.

I’ll let that sit there, shall I?

They took slabs from the walls, transported them, and reassembled the mine in the museum. The first guides were the former miners, and once upon a time they’d demonstrate mining by having a go at the walls with a pickaxe.
They don’t do that no more.

More pictures of U-505.

It’s worth mentioning that one of the things recovered was an Enigma machine & various code books.
At least, it’s worth it to me.

Probably the Captain’s quarters.
Or maybe sixteenths, or sixty-fourths.
Oddly, with the wood paneling, it reminded me of the hostel I was staying in at at the time.

Tour guide showing off one of the bunks.
From memory, this was one of the better bunks, in that there was a privacy curtain. From the look of it, it’s a pretty good one, and would block the light; The ones at the Freehand Chicago were more for space exclusion.

There were apparently two toilets on the boat, but because they’d be filling every available space with supplies & consumables, only one would be accessible at the start of the voyage, and they’d eat their way to the other one.

“The beds at this hostel suck, and there’s no privacy, but it has really unique architecture.”

Including this one because I think that’s me on the right.

You can’t entirely make it out, but she’s got a Chicago Flag pin where the little red stars are little red Daleks.

This is a submarine driving simulator, where you’re controlling just the forward planes.

Note very serious reading of instructions.

In which I try to extrapolate from Mein Deutche Nicht Gut; Sprechen Sie English? to This Is The Forward Planes Operator; I Have No Idea What I’m Doing, And We Are All Going To Die.

Ohhh, that can’t be good.

Ooops.
My Bad! That was me; Sorry.

Fortunately, due to my innate skill, we have escaped.
Because I’m clever.

Teslacoil!

This thing is really loud; First couple of time it went off while we were elsewhere in the hall, I thought it was a siren of some sort.

And finally, here I am playing with the MSI prototype teleporter.
It’s not capable of remote-location to remote-location yet, so instead they go through an intermediary step.

Here’s the beam-up/takeoff/whatever – You can see the next person in line getting into place behind me.

This is the intermediate step; Unsurprisingly, it really stings, hence the expression.

And finally, the destination.
Kind of a relief to be out of the rushing airflow of that little chamber, as you can tell from the much more relaxed pose & expression.

Plan for the day involved mostly being inside.
This worked out well, because it absolutely pissed down.

I got noticeably soaked walking two sides of a block while trying to remain under cover. The drains and gutters were not coping.

There’s really not a good way to sum up MSI, other than “They’ve Got A Bunch Of Stuff”.

Here, for example, is their U-Boat, appropriately housed in an underground bunker.

The boat was captured at sea & brought back to the US under great secrecy, and the crew were kept out of contact with … well, everyone … to keep the fact that it hadn’t vanished at sea under wraps. They eventually made it home, or at least all of the survivors of the capture of the thing did, having been assumed to be dead once the boat failed to return.

I have to wonder whether there were discussions about whether the crew should survive at all.

The first thing we saw wasn’t actually the U-Boat; It was a mirror maze.
A very well made one. Rather than making something where there are a billionty versions of you, they went with disorientation & misdirection, so you could walk right past a hallway and just not know it was there, or see someone and not realise that they were behind you down a hallway on a 60º angle to yours, not further down ‘your’ hall.

There’s a whole ‘space’ section, as evidenced by SpaceCow here.

Oh, and this Mercury capsule, which isn’t a replica.

And the Apollo 8 Command Module here, also not a replica.
This thing saw the back of the Moon.

Seeing actual space capsules was pretty damn cool.
Also, there’s piss-all room in those things; Makes me wonder how many liberties the makers of From The Earth To The Moon took with the internal dimensions when they depicted them.
And also how the hell anyone could suit up.

And I just really wanted to use this picture.

There’s a bunch of Natural Forces stuff, including the Teslacoil, which is both Loud & Very Hard To Photograph, but was tremendous fun to watch.
They also have a multi-story indoor tornado, which they’ll let you play with & in.

No idea what this will involve, but it look interesting.

And photobomb-able.
Apparently.

There was a lot more to MSI, but cellphone pictures can’t really do it justice.
More to see than you could feasibly do in a day, I think.

On the way back (the rain had stopped) we stopped at a “Cupcake ATM”.

Don’t You Judge Me.

Anyway, it was being repaired, or maybe rebooted, when we got there, and joined the other people waiting.
At 11pm.
At a cupcake-vending machine.
Then other people arrived.

Eventually there were cupcakes.

I should point out that it’s dispensing premade and preboxed cupcakes, not making them to order as you order.
That would be delicious craziness.

In the sad lonely days after Gen Con, I hung around in Indianapolis to go and do the touristy stuff that you don’t do while the convention is on.
Most of that tourism was in places where I, at least, don’t like taking photos, like the Eiteljorg Museum, or the State Museum, so not a lot of photos in this one.

It turns out that I quite like wandering around art galleries and pretending I know a thing about the art, so that was a learning experience. Also, the Indiana State Museum’s exhibits on slavery and civil rights history were less sanitised than I’d expected.
Similarly, the Eiteljorg’s section on Native American history in the region was … blunt … in places.

I spent a few more nights at the JW, watching the next conference move in.
Took this photo of their poster, because that’s an impressive logo for a conference; The scuffing of the image and marks on the paper are part of the branding, and the retro feel caught my attention.

There was a baseball game going on at Victory Field, and this was the view from the end of the corridor on the 28th floor.
Frank & I spotted someone looking out the side window in the elevator lobby at the field, and suggested that he go to the end instead, and look from there. I suspect that he could have been found, later that night, sitting by that window in the chair from the room, watching the game from a pretty unusual angle.

 We recorded an episode of the Big Red Couch, plus a Gen Con Special, starting at Oh Dear God in the morning.

I set up the rolling table/desk thing in front of the window so I’d have something to look at while we recorded. It worked well, and allowed me to spot a drone floating around out there; Thought it was lights on a building at first, but then they started moving. Not sure how far out it was, but I’m guessing that the pilot was in White River State Park, just across the road. Certainly there looked to be some folks out there paying very close attention to said drone. (spotted them when dawn broke)

(I had to put the Gen Con Programme down to use as a mouse pad)

Probably last year, I tried a root beer from A&W at the encouragement of a friend, so I indulged in some nostalgia & sent them the photographic evidence.

Laundry happened. Not much more to say on that, other than how pleased I am when I find that a hotel has a guest laundry that doesn’t charge per-item. Makes this whole travel thing so much easier; I think I’ve used my strange-smelling travel soap … Twice, maybe? Once in Rotorua, once in London.

And again another time, but that’s In The Fuuuutuuureeee!!!

And because have;

1. A plushy Burj Khalifa
2. A posable artists mannequin
3. A short attention span
4. Limited self-control

I took some pictures while packing up.

The line-up where it looks to waving the US Flag was unintentional; Only noticed it now.

It was a scorchingly hot day, and I went to the zoo.
Where one or two of the animals seemed to have melted.

There were some things I didn’t photograph, such as the shark-petting tank, where I was too distracted by seeing them swimming around right in front of me to take a picture.
I didn’t end up petting one; Turns out my desire to not disturb the critter is greater than my desire to pet a shark.

The glass walled & roofed room inside the dolphin tank I didn’t photograph because … well, a cellphone camera wouldn’t show a damn thing. It was fun, though rather reminiscent of the undersea lab in Jaws 3, and I don’t remember that working out so well for anyone.
Near as I could tell, the room was surrounded by water, with just the entrance & outrance tubes connecting it to the dry parts of the world.
Tank was kind of bare, but it may have been the staging area for the Dolphin Show, and not the ‘habitat’.

There’s a tiger in here somewhere. I remember it.

Melted bear.

Suspicious … Lemur?
yep; Red Ruffed Lemur

Mobile Lawn Ornaments!
And Ducks.

Lioness, enjoying the shade & breeze.

Melted Meercat.

Cheetahs, who seemed less concerned about the heat, but weren’t keen on being photographed.

Unlike these birds, who arranged themselves photogenically.

And a melted Red Panda.

The zoo also has the Simon Skjodt International Orangutan Center, with multiple linked enclosures, an open-air rope bridge system accessible from said enclosures which doesn’t provide access to the outside world, and a bunch of stuff which you’d hope the residents find interesting. This day, they found not being in the heat & the sun interesting, and I can’t blame them.