Advertisement
Published: June 26th 2013
Edit Blog Post
With Fort Point
How many people even know the fort is there? The boys specifically requested a battlefield for this trip, as they do for most. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of battlefields west of the Mississippi. (We've been to some named battlefields, but they're mostly massacres on one side or the other.) We were excited, then, to discover Fort Point National Historic Site, not a battlefield, but close enough. It's also at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge, so it was somewhere to get a different perspective. It was also one of the best maintained forts we've seen. The boys, and we, had a great time exploring all the different rooms--the powder storage, living quarters, batteries, etcetera. Liam loved looking over the edge at the water below, while Cole preferred to stay as close to the center of everything as possible. The boys, Dad and I walked up to a different viewpoint as well, to see more batteries higher up on the hill, more defense that remained unneeded.
I had planned a few different caches I definitely wanted to get, so we took some time to find them as well. One was at the Presidio Chapel next to San Francisco National Cemetery, so we took a brief drive through. It's
Synchiropus splendidus
Green mandarinfish. Coolest looking fish I've seen in a long time. bigger than Black Hills, but smaller than Fort Snelling, and certainly than Arlington. A second brought us to an overlook of the city. The third brought us to the San Francisco Columbarium, but it was closed for a service.
We usually try to see aquariums on vacation, too, so we went to the California Academy of Sciences. It was an interesting mix of science museum, aquarium, planetarium. Lunch was good, but expensive. We started in their exhibit on earthquakes, including a simulation. I've always wanted to experience an earthquake, but we still haven't. Now I at least have a sense of what it feels like. We then went in to the rainforest exhibit, which had butterflies that never stayed still long enough for photos, spiders, lizards, snakes, frogs. This flowed down into the aquarium, where there were sharks and the usual fish and coral, but also an albino alligator and one of the cooler fishes I've seen in a very long time. There were also exhibits on evolution, focusing on the Galapagos Islands, and classic natural history dioramas, as well as a living roof.
Our final stop in San Francisco was the Columbarium. It sounds very weird, but
there is a very popular, specific type of geocache there, so we went. I'm glad, because the architecture is stunning, as is the artwork. There are urns from the 1800s up to very recent, small to large, ornate to very simple. The boys were appropriately quiet, which was impressive given their energy levels.
Supper was at Denny's. That sounds pretty lame, given the amazing options in the area, but it was a special request from Mom and Dad, and it was good and inexpensive. We enjoyed a relatively early evening and prepped to head north tomorrow morning.
- - - - -
Geocaches Found: 6
Advertisement
Tot: 0.364s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 62; dbt: 0.2451s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb