Bay Area Trip Day 8 (California Academy of Sciences)

To start the day I walked down to get breakfast at a diner in the Castro called the Squat and Gobble. Originally I had planned on finding a market and picking up some breakfast stuff to cook back at the house but by the time I got down the hill I was frankly feeling kinda lazy. So I ate a really good breakfast sandwich, had a couple cups of coffee, ordered Ursa a breakfast to go and walked it back up the hill so that she could have something to eat when she got up.

We hung around the house until the early afternoon before we headed back down to Golden Gate Park, stopping along the way to do some shopping. Once in the park we headed to the de Young Museum of Art. One prominent feature of the museum is it's observation platform in it's tower which offers some great views of the city. The  de Young is not as big as I thought it would be, though we did not go through the Georgia O'keefe exhibition, and skipped over the Native American, and African art exhibits too, so there may have been quite a bit that we didn't see.

One artist that we did not miss was Dale Chihuly. His masterful work with glass has made him a ubiquitous figure in nearly every art museum in the country and around the world. Seeing him here as well continues to remind me of how prolific of an artist he is. At any rate, his pieces are magnificent, and full of vibrant colors, captivating shapes, and fascinating details. I really cannot take my eyes off of it.

After the museum we walked across the plaza to the California Academy of Sciences. Ursa had gotten us VIP tickets to the "Night Life" event which features a guided tour of the facility, access to the gem and mineral vault, a discussion with some of the scientists working in the facility, priority seating for the Planetarium show and of course an open bar. 

One of the important points to remember about the Academy of Sciences is that its primary function remains as a research facility. The exhibits, displays, and planetarium are all great ways to educate and get the public engaged but the Academy is first and foremost about science. It was founded during the California Gold Rush as a way of accumulating information about the physical environment of this new area of the country that was being rapidly settled. 

While all of the research is great, and it's good to know that is going on, who doesn't love to see the super cool science exhibits? This facility sports a huge rain forest sphere to walk through, filled with tropical birds, and butterflies. Also an aquarium exhibit, and an indoor corral reef which was awesome. All in all it was a fun, educational, nerdtastic night.