The Amazon River and Painted Ladies – Day 5

This post is about the fifth day of our road trip in America, still in San Francisco! You can read all of the related posts here. The ones describing the previous day, two installments can be found here –

Cable Cars and Matrimonial Cakes – Day 4 of our Trip

Serendipity at work and how we wandered over to the dark side of San Francisco – Day 4, part 2

Without further ado, here we go -

The weather forecast promised a sunny day, but the the morning was hazy. Our plan was to start our day in the Golden Gate Park and visit the new complex of the Academy of Sciences.

The California Academy of Sciences has been around for a long time. The institution was formed in 1853 with the goal of combining research and education, or in other words, attracting crowds to  stuffed woolly mammoths and skeletons of dinosaurs. Their halls had been severely hit by the two big earthquakes, in 1906 and 1989. It was bad enough to make them move to a whole new place, providing an opportunity for a major rehaul of the entire concept of Natural History displays. In 2008, the Academy opened the gates of its new award-winning structure. They claim to be the greenest museum in the world. In fact, pictures of their living roof, with its lush vegetation, played a big part in my decision to add this to our itinerary.

As it happens, the living roof was a bit of a disappointment, perhaps the dull morning light didn’t do it justice. We did however thoroughly enjoyed the rest. The highlight of our visit, as far as I was concerned, was the planetarium. The Academy’s patrons aimed at creating exhibits for the 21st century and I think they’ve nailed the futuristic aspect with the planetarium. Forget about galaxies projected above your head, this one had the most involving display I have ever experienced. It felt almost too real, taking us deep into far space and then into living cells. In fact, the show was so intense, it freaked one of our boys out, and IsraeliDad had to leave the theatre with him (he returned for a later show). If you’re in San Francisco, I can’t recommend this show enough, but be careful with young children, as it may not be suitable for them.

The rest of the Academy wasn’t too shabby either. Opposite the Planetarium was a twin globe, where a spiral deck led us through four levels of rainforest, complete with huge trees, waterfalls, ribitting frogs, chirping birds and colorful butterflies.

Academy of Science - Tropical Forest Globe

Once at the top, we descended in an elevator to the lowest part of the rainforest, right into a huge glass tunnel that let us walk inside the river and see the huge exotic fish of the Amazon river swimming all around us and above our heads. This was also the entry point to the large aquarium, with a rich and varied display, covering over 900 different aquatic species.

Academy of Science - Inside the Amazon River

We spent the better part of the day at the Academy. I thought it was just the right size, large enough to keep you busy and entertained for many hours, but without making you feel there’s no way you can ever take it all in.

It was early afternoon by the time we left and strolled along the park pathways to the Botanical Gardens. The haze had dissipated and we enjoyed being outdoors, experiencing the horticultural wonders of this park. We spent just over two hours there, focusing only on a limited area, as the place was too large to cover in so short a time. The highlight for us was the small grove of redwood sequoias. They were relatively young, but already tall and impressive. (We’ve seen so many mature sequoias by the time we were back home in Israel, of every type and kind… but there were the first in this trip.)

Next,  we drove on to the Haight-Ashbury area, where we had friends to visit. Well, friends-by-proxy at that point. Victoria and Aaron and their three children had visited Israel the previous year. Playing and singing in some venues, they happened to meet another musically inclined couple – my brother-in-law Boaz and his wife Ayelet. The two families formed one of those meaningful friendships that rely on a spiritual connection rather than on daily contact. Once we knew we were going to be in San Francisco, the wheels had been put in motion for a meeting.

Victoria and Aaron lived in a huge Victorian house. Over a hundred years old, this was in fact one of the famous San Francisco Painted Ladies.  They were renting the place along with some friends, in essence living in one big commune, very much in the spirit of the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, famous for being the birthplace of the hippie movement. Not that they were hippies, but there was a definite sense of sharing and acceptance about the entire household which we relished. We had a lovely evening, with a wonderful and joyous group of people. We not only shared food, but also helped prepare it and set it up. It was our first interaction with the “natives” of the land, and we left feeling that “the locals” were almost surprisingly friendly, relaxed and open-minded. Our only regret was that we didn’t have more time to spend with this group of people, and that by the time we’d be hitting San Francisco again, Victoria and Aaron would have moved to a different part of the country.

I can’t believe I’ve been writing so much and have barely covered five days out of 160! At this rate, we’ll be off to another trip before I’m done! I’m considering a change in this report, parting with the linear day-by-day structure and moving in jumps and leaps, back and forth, to other parts of the story: visiting Yellowstone (and losing IsraeliDad there), Yosemite, the Redwood National Park,  tidepooling and whale watching in Oregon, the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, our St. Louis adventures,  hiking the Appalachian trail (ok, a small part of it), the Canadian Rockies, the Black Hills of Dakota, amazing Glacier National Park, the Grand Canyon… so much to share! Hope this won’t turn out to be too confusing. Let me know what you think.

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