San Francisco - Day 3

Well, we made it to San Francisco today.  It was quite an adventure, though.  Justin and I are very sure we never want to live in a major city like this.  Wow!  Driving (and parking) is crazy here.  But we made it to Uncle Rusty's house, and the kids were super excited to see him.

Uncle Rusty lives in a cool old house that the kids and I think smells like Mr. Toad's Wild ride in Disneyland--or maybe even the Haunted Mansion.  There is a lot of old wood and old wood floors.  It's amazing.  Rustyn says it's like 100 years old.

After we unpacked and filled up Rustyn's house with all our stuff, we headed over to Golden Gate Park for a visit to the California Academy of Sciences.  They have an aquarium, a rainforest, a planetarium, and countless exhibits.  We spent a good several hours there checking out all the interesting stuff.

Tatum wasn't a big fan of the planetarium show (which we all loved), but she really liked a lot of the other exhibits.  Here she is trying to open her mouth as wide as the sabertooth cat.

This is Connor with the mechanical anaconda they used in the actual movie Anaconda.  It was pretty dang cool, and downstairs we got to see a real live anaconda in the rainforest area.  I think they did a good job replicating the snake.  He was creepy live and mechanical.  And speaking of snakes...  there was an Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake in the reptile area.  He was HUGE and very brazen.  He came right up to the glass and was checking us out just as much as we were him.  He was a bit scary, and I was glad there was a thick plate of glass between us.

They had a whole African animals diorama area.  There were cheetahs, lions, gorillas, antelope, and even live African penguins.  We really liked this exhibit a lot.

And this was the living roof.  This is the roof of the museum.  That is a garden and ventilation system for the museum.  It was a little chilly and windy up there, but what a view!  We stayed around until the museum closed, and then walked to our car.  Did I mention parking is crazy here?

On our way home, we passed the Japanese Tea Gardens.  We'll definitely want to check that out on another day.  Justin was eyeballing that one for sure.  But we are calling it an early day.  We are ordering pizza in and relaxing with Rustyn.  We've got a big day tomorrow.  We are headed off to the redwoods and Eureka, California!  This is the part of the trip I've been most excited for.  See you tomorrow!