Golden Gate Park

Today's adventure was exploring a little bit of Golden Gate Park. It is nowhere near the Golden Gate Bridge, FYI. It is a little like Central Park and the National Mall. It is very big with lots of trees, paths, lakes, museums and gardens. However, the museums, unlike the National Mall, are NOT free. We chose one museum for the day - the California Academy of Science.
Nathaniel really enjoyed the museum. Davis - so so.

We also walked through an arboretum and saw a fantastic fox. It was an urbanized fox and cared little if we were there or not.

The day was sunny, but windy and cold.

Not so windy that the windmill was working, I guess.

Wind coming off the ocean to the right. We tried 4 different places to get hot chocolate. Not a hot chocolate friendly park.

Japanese Garden

Amphitheater

Living roof of California Academy of Science building.

Free range Strawberry Poison Dart Frogs in the rain forest exhibit. Any kid could have picked them up and licked them. (Think about it... you probably know some kid who would.)

Blue jelly fish (never seen blue before.)

Jelly Belly

Took a tour of the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield, CA. Really fun. You get to see the real factory working (unlike the Hershey Factory tour in Pennsylvania). It smells great and they hand out lots of jelly bean samples.
Everyone has to wear these paper hats so no errant hairs float down into the jelly bean factory works. There are many examples of jelly bean art like this bear. Nathaniel thought they went overboard with the Ronald Reagan jelly bean portraits.

Who wouldn't love a jelly bean bug?

The big Jelly Belly himself.

Muir Woods in the Rain

Muir Woods is in Marin County on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was worth exploring - even for a short muddy walk.
It was rainy (you can see the drops reflecting the flash.)

Kind of dark in the photo because of the heavy cloud cover, but it was very green in real life.

Chris and Nathaniel in one of the giant redwoods.

Hollow log too small for Chris.

The hollow log is just right for Nathaniel.

Nathaniel and I were searching for Banana Slugs, but he only found psychedelic (looking) mushrooms.

Probably would have been nicer without the rain, but it is very green and mossy so it must rain alot there.

The Garners go to Alcatraz

The boys are out of school and into prison - for the day anyway. We took a ferry out to Alcatraz Island. It was surprisingly sunny for Alcatraz, so the grounds were very pretty. But it would be absolutely depressing to have to live in the prison. The cells are so small and you would probably never be warm. No wonder they all tried to escape.
Nathaniel found a bird that was willing to pose for a picture.

A garden shed on the grounds looked almost inviting.

The narrow strip of ground to my left was some of the prisoners' gardens.

There would be a cot in the cell for the prisoner. Lovely.

Self portrait

Prison in the background. Agave growing over rubble from military family housing off to the left.

Yeah, just in case you didn't know it was illegal to help prisoners escape.

Nathaniel didn't like the signs all over the place that said, "Access restricted for your protection" He would have liked to go up all the stairs (like the ones on the guard tower in the background).

Happy Birthday Nathaniel

Nathaniel turned 10 years old. See him grinning over his birthday banana cream pie? What a great kid! When I asked him what his favorite part of our Thanksgiving trip was, he said it was the empty pond at Stanford. He would like to go to Stanford University when he grows up because it would be nice to live by that empty pond.

Boating is still allowed. Look close; he's out there.

San Francisco Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year found us "camping" in Chris' San Francisco studio apartment. One person on the bed and three on the floor nearly filled the place. But it's a great base camp for exploring San Francisco.
View from studio apartment's door.

Cable Car Museum

Cool building we noticed while we were standing under it.

Walking up Telegraph Hill.

Coit Tower on top of Telegraph Hill.

Bay Bridge from Telegraph Hill.

Interesting details all over city.

Lighthouse, Marin Headlands.

Picnic at Marin Headlands near one of the many military bunkers.

Fort Baker - Marin side of Golden Gate Bridge.

Walkin down Russian Hill. Steep (look at door frame to see actual horizontal line).

Lombard Street. The memorable part is driving up the other side before you go down the zig zag. Soooo steep!

Exploratorium science museum. The science of toilet water.

Muse'e Mechanique at Fisherman's Wharf.

Christmas tree lighting in Union Square.

Cable car ride. So welcome after walking up hills for a few days.

Halloween Costumes

My sister Sue said her Halloween costume is whatever her 18 year old daughter was the year before. This year - pink kitty; next - lady bug. Take a look at my costumery future if I adopted that method.

What do you think? It's a version of Link from Legend of Zelda.

Gift

While my mom was here, I tried to make pesto with my blender. My food processor broke this summer while I was making a batch of tomato soup. I used it a lot. Mom took pity on me while I was trying to shove basil leaves down into the blender blades with a wooden spoon while trying to avoid making wooden spoon pesto. A few days after she left a box arrived. Big new food processor with an extra bowl attachment, dough blade, cuisinart pizza pan and pizza cutter (Nathaniel is excited to have round pizza instead of our regular rectangular pizza.)

But first things first. I used it to make an apple pie for Halloween.

Forgot to take a picture of the actual pie, but it was delicious. Thanks Mom.