Day Four: Explore! Atorium!

We spent Day Four saying goodbye to San Francisco and the familiar unfamiliarity of its streets. The San Francisco bay area is close enough to home that it's rather common for folks in Long Beach to make the drive up for a weekend or even a day trip. But it's far enough away that the things we want to make sure and see again are almost always pushed aside for things we never knew we had been missing. Yesterday's slide adventure was one example. Today we found another.


I knew, when I first stumbled across The Exploratorium on a San Francisco website from the comfort of our own couches, that it was going to be awesome. Our genius roomie Robyn is what her peers call a "Science-type Brain Lady." Mike and I, both very much rooted in the humanities, used to love hearing tales from the other side of campus: tales of dissections and nano-things and what exactly happens when you poke someone in the brain. The Exploratorium seemed (and proved) to be the perfect outing for the three of us, and luckily Robyn was able to sneak out of work for a few hours to come with us. It has all the fun and excitement of a children's science museum, but was designed for adults to enjoy just as much. We tracked our eye movements (scandalous!), we made electrical currents dance (scintillating!) and we even played with a robot (scantily clad!). I can't say we ended up learning much, as we didn't have time to read the meaning of the experiment we'd just performed before we were called away to see something even awesomer. We didn't get to see the whole museum (since Robyn had to get back to her brain-poking), so we're looking forward to adding it to our list for next time we make it up here. We still have the "Tactile Dome" left to explore!

After Robyn went back to her obligations, we made a horrifyingly long trek through The Presidio and down to Golden Gate Park, where Mike's brother Matt, having ditched obligations of his own across the Bay Bridge, was waiting for us. Very cold and very tired, we were glad to have him drive us to the Japanese Tea Garden and Kezar Stadium. Generally, we were glad to have him.


Just another touch of home before we start the real hard stuff. Like when our friend Edna met us at the rail stop to say a quick hello and a quicker goodbye before going back to studying for her exams. Oh, what a friendly city!

A short trip to San Francisco was the first vacation Mike and I ever took together and, now that we have family and close friends up here as well, it feels more like a second home every time we visit. So it's probably for the best that we exhausted ourselves walking its hills and riding its oh-so-lovely public transportation today. It's probably for the best that we'll be leaving it for parts much less familiar in a few short hours. Best that we don't get too comfortable here, because we've got a long way to go.

Thanks and huzzah! to all the wonderful folk who made themselves available for hanging out while we were here in your town. Thanks especially to Robyn-the-birthday-girl for renting us her lovely floor space at a family rate and to Val & Whitney for those invaluable Muni passes. Ah, and one last thing we'll be missing as Mike and SharTours rambles on:


Listened to: Whatever random late-night NPR weirdness is playing on Robyn's stereo right now, and the synthesizer that put music to the electrical current that was closed when our mouths touched the water stream of the Exploratorium drinking fountain. Also, the music videos of Montgomery Gentry.

Mystery words: "Cat Salmon"

Mike!: astoriedyear.blogspot.com