Sonya's Blog - Day 309 - Vandals Ruin Our Day
Sonya’s Blog - Day 309 - April 26th - Vandals Ruin Our Day:(
Today we wanted to visit the California Academy of Science, Filbert Steps and Lombard Street. We were originally going to take the ferry, but Golden Gate Park is quite far from the ferry and this is where the museum is. We had already discovered that we can park quite easily there and it is free for 4 hours, so we decided to drive.
We found parking with no troubles, just a 5 minute walk from the museum. The museum is on the Music Concourse, which is a pretty neat area. The area was originally developed for the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894. It is a large oval shaped area with the focal point being a large stage area. There is a museum on each side of the oval, the M.H. de Young Museum and the California Academy of Science.
This is a pretty cool place and the mission of this science museum is to explore and sustain life on earth. When we arrived they were feeding the penguins, so we whipped over there to check it out. These were African penguins and they were super cute:
The penguins had been trained, through a reward system, to step on the scale and then they get fed. They were pretty cute about it, they waddled forward in a semi-line and each took their turn on the scale. This works our well for the scientists, because they get to weigh them while they are feeding them, helping to keep track of their weight. Quite a few of the penguins came forward and did a little shiver type dance and then turned around and waggled their tail at us, after they had finished eating. It was pretty awesome.
We headed over to the Planetarium afterwards to find out about their shows. We had to get tickets for the show, but we they did not charge for them, it was just to ensure they had enough seating for the crowds. We got tickets for the 11:30 show, so we headed downstairs to the aquarium to check it out before the show started.
The aquarium was split into different eco-systems, but my favourite aquarium was the Leafy Sea Dragon. I wasn’t allowed to take a picture in the aquarium, but I took one of the net:
They were so cool. They also had a massive Anaconda, but again, no pictures allowed.
The aquarium from above;
When it was time for our show, we headed upstairs. The show was called Incoming! and it was all about asteroids and their collisions with earth. By studying asteroids, we can learn more about earth and the creation of our galaxy. The most interesting part of the show, in my opinion, was the discussion of our 9th planet. Does it exist? This planet 9 is elusive, mostly because it’s orbit is so large that we have never seen it. It is, however, massive. It is estimated that is is 10 times the weight of Earth and 4 times it’s size and that it takes about 15,000 years to orbit the sun. Scientists are narrowing down where they think the planet is in it’s orbit and trying to get a picture of where it is in our universe. It is thought there is another planet due to the strange orbits of several large clumps of icy objects that exist beyond Neptune in an area knowns as the Kuiper Belt. These are called KBO’s, Kuiper Belt Objects, and several of them have orbits that are tilted at completely different angle to the solar system, as if they were disrupted by another object with a large gravitational pull. The discovery of a 9th planet would explain some anomalies in our solar system, including a couple of perturbations on Saturn’s orbit, so it is pretty exciting stuff.
When our show was over, we went over to the cafeteria for lunch. We had brought our leftover pasta salad for lunch, so we could dig right in. Blake also bought a slice of pizza and some samosas to go with our lunch, so that was a nice treat. Well the samosas were, I don’t like pizza.
When we were done lunch we checked out the Seismic Activity section. There are just a whole lot of fault lines in this area, it is kind of crazy. There is the San Andreas Fault, which everyone knows about as that is supposedly going to be the cause of the big one, when and if it happens. There are also six other significant fault zones in the bay area, which is a lot. Evidently stresses are continuing to build and scientists expect more frequent and stronger earthquakes in the future. I guess there are tiny earthquakes all the time, but they are really only concerned with earthquakes that measure over magnitude 6.0.
There was another show about the Rainforests of the world, so we headed up to that theatre to check it out. There were a couple of scientists from the museum that went to the Amazon to do some studies. This film was an explanation of their studies and what they mean. There was also a point in the show where the live presenter told us a bit about all the tropical rainforests in the world and why they are so important for life on our planet. It was very good and we all learned a few things.
We then went and toured the museums rainforest dome. It was a four story rainforest and each level covered different rainforests around the world. I loved the top level, which was the canopy. All the butterflies were up there and it was really neat.
It was almost 2, so we needed to go as our 4 hour parking was up. We went to check out Claude, the albino alligator before we left. He is lucky to be here, in the wild he would have never have survived. In the museum he is as safe as can be and well fed to boot.
We walked back to the truck and got a great, big surprise.
Someone had smashed out our rear, passenger side window and left a huge mess.
At first glance, it didn’t seem like anything was missing. Our jackets were there, our sunglasses and Natasha’s ipad (lucky girl). We needed to clear the glass out of the truck and window opening, so that Isaac could sit in his seat. Luckily, Blake had a glove to help him with this process. I looked up auto repair shops to get some quotes and see if we could get it done. I found a place, that was down near the harbour, that could do it today and was only $195 for the replacement. I don’t know what these things cost, but it sounded reasonable to me. We drove over there and they were able to repair it. They had a nice waiting room and so we stopped there for the hour and half that the repair took. We were near the harbour, but in the industrial section. There was really nothing within walking distance to see and do for that period of time. They repaired it within the time frame and we were on our way by 4:30 PM. Unfortunately, that wrecked the rest of our plans for the day and we had to head straight back.
Our GPS ended up taking us right through the San Francisco area, right off of downtown. We went up and down some pretty steep streets, but got to see some different areas of the city.
Cresting the hill:
Going down the other side:
We got back and I took care of Kizmet while Blake and the kids prepped supper.
View of the bay from the dog walking area:
We did discover that our backpack is missing. Now, we all thought we didn’t bring it with us today and nobody remembers putting it in the truck. It is nowhere to be found in the RV, so it must have been in the truck. Well if the little vandals broke our window to steal the backpack, they are going to be sorely disappointed. It had some water bottles in it and my eye glasses, as well as maps of San Francisco and odds and ends. I am a little disappointed about my glasses, mostly because I could have really used them in the museum. I was told we had forgotten the bag and didn’t even look in the back seat to see. Had I looked, my glasses would have been safely with me, because I spent the entire time in the museum seeing fuzzier images than necessary. I have new glasses waiting for me (I got new ones when I was in Calgary, but they weren’t ready before we hit the road again) and I can still drive as my sunglasses are prescription. It is still a bummer though. Such is life.
Sonya