Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

This year for President's day we had to decide what to do. Should we go to Nixon's Presidential Library or take a trip to the desert? It wasn't pouring rain this year (see "President's Day" link below for our adventure last year) so we went to the desert. C'mon, would you waste a sunny day on Nixon's library? The things the boys enjoyed about Reagan's library - jelly beans, air force one - were not going to be there. We spent the night at a resort in the town of Borrego Springs. Not much to the town itself - but plenty of sun and a warm swimming pool.
The boys swam as soon as we arrived and then right up until check out time the day we left.

We snagged lunch in the "village" and tried to look for all the prehistoric animal sculptures that were supposed to be spread around town. We couldn't find anymore to the town, so this pteranodon was all we found to pose with. BTW, pteranodons like Sierra Mist.

Borrego Springs is in the middle of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (east of San Diego.)

We took a hike up Palm Canyon. We started over closer to that mountain behind these guys.

Here's a pic of the boys taking a break on the Twizzlers bench, and lucky us, we happened to have Twizzlers in the bag.

The hike involved a lot of boulder hopping (they weren't necessarily on the trail but they had to be hopped anyway.)

Destination: palm tree oasis

Boys on rocks at oasis

And even though it was a desert oasis - that water was cold.

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.