Birthday Fun Part 1

When in San Francisco, do as the tourists
February is a great month.  For starters it is a point out here in the SF Bay area when the winter weather can break and produce some great weather, as is the case this La Niña year.  It is also the shortest month, but packed with a bunch of holidays like Groundhog Day, President’s Day Nirvana Day, Valentine’s Day…  If that isn’t enough, it is also the month of my birthday!  As far as things go for my birthday, I tend to like to keep things slow paced, and not get too celebratory.  So when Dorothy asked me what I would like to do for my special day, I said the usual thing that I always say, “Mmmm, nothing.”  That doesn’t work for her, so I am usually greeted with a list of possible things that she has researched for us to do together to honor the day I was born (and the week, and even the month).  Who says you have to celebrate for just one day?  The list this year, the first when we weren’t in Boston in the past 4, featured some things that I have never done, even though I have lived in and around SF for many years prior.  After mowing through the list with her here is what we decided to do.
Exploratorium
The Exploratorium is a landmark in San Francisco.  Originally designed by Frank Oppenheimer (brother of atom bomb maker Robert Oppenheimer), the Exploratorium started with just a few exhibits that gave kids a chance to see the action behind the science that they may be learning about in school.  Part museum, part learning experience, all fun, this way of “learning” was pretty revolutionary back in the late 1960s.  But it works, and the Exploratorium soon filled its 100,000 square foot space at the Palace of Fine Arts with a wide range of exhibits that encompasses everything from how energy flows, to how sound travels, to a dark dome that you navigate through using only the sense of touch (the Tactile Dome) and so much more…

Even though I am kind of a germaphobe, I eagerly agreed to visit the Exploratorium just to experience it before they move to their new space at Pier 15/17. What a treat it was too. We spun cranks that made light bulbs glow, turned knobs that caused water to ripple with sound waves, shined light at prisms and watched rainbows appear… I especially liked the magnetism and electrical exhibits, as they all look like they are as old as the museum itself with big chunky knobs and buttons that appear to have come from some magical electronics surplus store.

I plan to return when the new facility is open as well, but I am super glad that I had the chance to see the place in its original home.

Fort Mason
We left the Exploratorium and walked along the Marina Green to get some much needed coffee and a snack at Greens Restaurant in Fort Mason. We missed the cutoff for lunch, and dinner was still a few hours away, so we grabbed some coffee from the Greens To Go counter and headed over to a bench on the dock of the bay where we watched the tide roll away (a quick check of the tide tables shows that the tide was indeed heading out as we sat there). The temps were mid 60s, light breeze and no clouds!

Feeling that we hadn’t yet walked enough, we continued through Fort Mason, passing a number of Exploratorium outside exhibits that are set up around the old fort. One that I like is this viewer that is aimed at the Golden Gate Bridge. Using a long zoom lens and some markings on the screen you can see how much the height of the bridge varies due to temperature. As the bridge heats up during the day, the metal expands causing the deck of the bridge to be just a bit closer to the water. Pretty neat, huh?

Fisherman’s Wharf
We popped out of the fort where Van Ness Ave ends and walked along a beach where people were swimming laps and boats were bobbing around in the water. It was starting to get shady and cool, so we headed away from the beach and walked along North Point St. for a bit, by Ghiradelli Square but soon found ourselves drawn back toward the water, where we became instant tourists experiencing one of the biggest tourist areas in SF, Fisherman’s Wharf. Oh, the smell of fried this and sticky that.

I like the anonymity of walking around a tourist area like that. It is a great equalizer. Everyone is either a tourist, or there to sell stuff to the tourists. If you are walking around with a small bag, just checking stuff out, boom – you’re a tourist. So Dorothy and I were temporarily thrust into becoming tourists for a short while. We watched some of the cable cars get turned around while musicians and dancers vied for our attention (I was more interested in watching the cable car turn around). Head down, no eye contact, and we were through the crowd just looking for something to do.

Aside from visiting the Wharf as a child on a family vacation – we got a big sponge, I have no actual experience on Fisherman’s wharf. That is unless you count skating around the wharf in Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4. But my skateboard was back in Marin, so no grinds along the Embarcadero on this trip. It was all walking, and realizing that there wasn’t much for us to do there any longer, and with the sun rapidly setting, we took some pictures of Alcatraz and headed back to the car, over the bridge, through the tunnel and back home.