Destination: Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool
The payoff: A little calm fun with the kids in an oasis in busy Lincoln Park.
As “zoologist” members of Lincoln Park Zoo this year, my family gets free parking next to the sprawling complex of gardens, recreation and animal housing in the zoo area. Woohoo!
The membership fee may be the best $100 I have ever spent. But after more than a dozen trips to the zoo this year, my kids are getting a little jaded.
So, on a balmy afternoon a few weeks ago, we pulled into the familiar parking lot with another destination in mind: The Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool. Located just north of the zoo with an entrance on busy Fullerton Avenue, the gated garden feels strangely secluded, serene — even lonely. I’ve never been there when there were more than five others in the place.
While it would be delightful to believe these gardens, serene pond, mini-waterfall and limestone bluffs were a natural result of ancient glacial water flows, they were actually designed by Prairie School landscape architect Caldwell in 1936. This didn’t seem to bother my 4-year-old and 8-year-old as we strolled the paths, chased bunnies, watch dragonflies skim the water and pretended we’d left the big city for a moment.
Although the sun was already low in the sky, it felt great to stand in the shallow pool of cool water trickling down from the waterfall (even though I told my kids not to but finally joined in) and to take shelter under the shady Prairie-style pavilion.
With its nooks and benches, the pavilion in this relatively sedate garden makes a perfect place to conduct a quiet heart-to-heart conversation.
But soon we were back out on the windy paths that ring the 1 1/2-acre pool. Lined with tall native prairie grasses, the garden paths offer a sense of wildness but are limited enough so that you don’t have to panic if you lose sight of a little one for few minutes.
Marching around a few times may not have exhausted us. But it did make us feel like we deserved a special treat in a cool, luxurious environment.
And so after we concluded our mini-nature hike, we straightened up our clothing, crossed the street to the Belden-Stratford Hotel, entered Mon Ami Gabi restaurant and took a seat at the civilized granite bar.
We weren’t hungry enough to stay for dinner (and the French bistro fare is much more enjoyable when you can sip wine and chat with grown-ups in a fidgety-kid-free environment) but dessert seemed like a perfect capper for our afternoon adventure.
Each of the kids ordered child-size sundaes ($3.95) and Mom got three giant hot fudge-drenched profiteroles. My trio of pastries sandwiching vanilla ice cream and topped with chocolate sauce was so seductive that I almost finished the whole thing.
As the sun set, we strolled through the Lincoln Park conservatory gardens, said “Hi” to the Shakespeare statue and returned to our car, completely sated. On the drive home, Mom sang Edith Piaf tunes and the kids napped in their car seats, heads full of lilies, dragonflies, bunnies and chocolate sundaes.
Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool
200 W. Fullerton Pkwy.; 773-883-7275
Free 30-minute guided tours of the garden and pool available 1-4 p.m. Fri., 9 a.m.-noon Sat. and 1-4 p.m. Sun.
Mon Ami Gabi
2300 N. Lincoln Park West; 773-348-8886
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meng@tribune.com
