Photo Blog!

Because a picture is worth 1,000 words and also -- because I'm wiped out. :o) You know, in a good way. Jonah and his girlfriend Jen are here for a few days, and today we went to the California Academy of Science museum in Golden Gate Park. Some of these are my pictures and some are David's.
Here we go:
On the way inside.

The Merry Band -- David, Jen and Jonah

In the aquarium:





The Rainforest, filled with gorgeous blue butterflies who would NOT pose:







This is what the bright elusive butterfly of blue looked like. Every time I raised my camera, they vanished. Every time I put it down: Dance of a Dozen Blue Butterflies.

Underneath the Rainforest, looking up:

Dinosaur and really large whale, which we think was also called *Blue* and the albino alligator. Not in that order.



Atop the Living Roof. The top of the building is 2.5 acres of indigenous plants, and the mounds covered with "portholes" are over the Rainforest and the Planetarium. No photography in the Planetarium, unfortunately, but it was amazing. And narrated by Sigourney Weaver. :o)




On the way home we drove up Twin Peaks for the view. Click these to make them big.

That dark green arrow shape is the eastern end of Golden Gate Park. Note the fog rolling in, covering most of the Bay. Alcatraz is in there, you can just barely see the bottom edge of the island way over to the right just above those white buildings against the water. LOVE the fog!

Must clean camera lens. :o) That green mound is a little park just a short way from home, and it's bounded on the north by Haight Street, for all you old hippies out there. (Or all you offspring of old hippies, or whatever.) We tried to walk around it once and I just couldn't do the uphill home stretch. David had to go get the car. Humiliating. The little brown hill just below and to the right of it is across the street from us -- iow, our house is behind it in this picture. The broad street running off at an angle there is Market Street, and if you look very hard a little to the right of it just before that one tall white building, you can see part of the Bay Bridge, which goes through a tunnel in Yerba Buena Island halfway across. That's the bridge I used to take to work. It didn't do well in the last earthquake. 1989. They're still working on fixing it. Excellent! Oakland and Berkeley are on the other side. So that's your tour of the City for today.

Do come visit. :o)