On our way down the elevator to leave for the day.
Brandt is having popcorn as breakfast dessert and a pout.
Who knows what the pout was about.
Puberty is sneaking up on him.
Reflections of the children as we waited for the cable car to come.
The heart of San Francisco.
Tap dancers
We walked a few blocks over to the museum. It is a hands-on multimedia art and technology museum designed to awaken creativity and innovation. It was free with our Thanksgiving Point pass, which is why we went to check it out. We found it was a fantastic place! We all loved it. It was super interactive, and even Kent and I got into it. We started off in the Community Lab where the kids could color a template of a house or building or an automobile or rocket, then scan their contribution and have it appear on the walls of the room. The cars, trucks, or rockets all drove/flew around, if you touched the houses they would lift off the ground and spin around, and it was all very bright and colorful. Blythe colored a house and Brandt scribbled a truck. The young man helping called it a "spaghetti truck."
House and truck.
We were early in the day, just after the museum opened, so there weren't a lot of structures or vehicles.
But by the time we left, there was much more going on, sort of like this,
although this is a more colorful version than what we saw.
After adding to the community, we went to play in kinetic sand that showed different elevations based on the color projected. The sand wasn't sticky, but it did hold its shape, and working together, the kids made islands and ponds and all sorts of interesting landscape.
We then all went to the animation studio. We were each able to create a claymation figure, then together make a movie with our figures. It was soooooo cool! Brandt and Kent each made a guy--Brandt's hugely muscular, Kent's small and whimpy. Blythe made a girl, and I made a seal. Then we came up with a storyline and made a short stop-motion film. The girl was reading on a bench next to the ocean. The seal wandered around. The small guy came and sat down on the bench next to the girl. Then the big guy came and sat on the small guy. He was there just a moment, then stood up and walked off . . . with the small guy stuck to the back of him! It was great!! We laughed and laughed as we made it, and then laughed lots more as we watched it. It was so much fun!
Next we went to the Tech Lab where we could write code while programming robots. We drove through a maze, toppled obstacles, and did a bit of writing on a white board. The children have both done coding before, but Kent and I hadn't. We all drove our robots around, trying not to hit each other or the barriers in the maze. I was able to program my robot to go all the way through the maze without stopping.
We went into the Innovation Lab where we were given a scenario and a mystery box and we had to try and make a something to help us get out of a sticky situation. This did not hold Brandt's attention very well, but Blythe designed a tool with feathers and a straw and worked out a solution.
We finished up our museum experience at the Music Studio. Here we selected a piece of music we wanted to sing karaoke style, some instruments to pretend play, and then performed while being recorded. It is a very silly video but I have no still pictures because I was singing with Blythe and Kent didn't think to snap any.
Really, the museum was so fun. We spent a couple of hours, engrossed by all there was to do. We walked out hungry and opted to have lunch at the museum cafe right in front of a carousel. How can you pass a carousel and not ride? We can't, so we did. Well, most of us anyway. Kent watched and waved from the side.
Funny pictures of me taken by Blythe.
Riding around and around
We wanted to walk through Chinatown and headed that general direction to catch a bus. We walked through Yerba Buena Gardens which are just beautiful. The wisteria was in bloom. We walked up and down the street trying to figure out where we should catch the bus, and had I looked a bit closer, we could have just walked to Chinatown without waiting for any transportation. It's hard to know how far things are when you aren't familiar with the city. At any rate, we did make it to Chinatown and walked the length of it. There were so many kitschy little shops, and everything along the street caught Blythe's eye. She could have found a whole suitcase full of treasures in a four block radius. In the end, she settled for a fan and some earrings. Kent wanted to stop for food. We had walked past all sorts of places, and when he finally selected a place, I thought it looked absolutely scary. I wanted to try someplace else. In the end, we didn't stop anywhere and had no Chinese food while in San Francsico. I suggested we return for dinner as the cable car from our hotel runs right through Chinatown, but he said no, so we didn't. He may hold it against me for the rest of our marriage.
In the gardens.
We wanted to take the cable car back to the hotel, but they don't run very often. We waited and waited and waited at a stop only to have a cable car come by and discover it was going the wrong direction. We had to walk around the corner and just caught one. I asked if it was going the direction we wanted, and the operator said yes, but the California line we needed to take back to the hotel was only three blocks up and we should walk. Then he drove off before we could get on. I was so mad! Kent said it was likely he didn't want us to get on, pay $7 each to go three blocks, then get off and have to pay $7 each again to catch the other one, but we had a pass and it wouldn't have been any extra. So I hauled Blythe up the hill with her dragging her feet, and we got on the one going back to the hotel.
It was late in the afternoon by the time we got back and the kids were pooped. They wanted to play on their Kindles and watch TV, so we took a break. I wanted to do a few other things, but I was outvoted. Here I am showing Kent and map trying to convince him we should go out again. We went as far as the next block over to get Thai food for dinner, and then walked up a couple of blocks to Trader Joe's to get more breakfast stuff. The children love Trader Joe's and went off on their own, pushing the cart, looking for beef jerky. I spent after dinner time getting bags packed and things organized as we leave in the morning to head for Monterey. San Francisco has been fun!
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