opened for the day. The ample free parking was a plus in addition to the free admission because we are members of the Cincinnati Museum Center. We are big fans of free! The Exploratorium was amazing! It was like a trip to COSI, only better! There were hundreds of hands on experiments and activities that had not only the kids completely engaged, but the adults as well. It is always a lot of fun to go into a “museum” where everything is meant to be touched and experimented with. The Exploratorium was divided into several different areas to explore. We began in the World of Matter. All of the displays explain some fundamental physical properties that make our world work. A couple of the displays used water. Water is always a big hit with AJ and I had to grab him to keep him from climbing into one of the exhibits. One of them that he really liked was a fountain with different shaped objects that you could place on the spout to make the water come out in differen
t forms. There was another that used a stream of soapy water and allowed the kids to put objects in the water’s path and actually see how the objects affected the current. Then there was the bubble table. Sarah got a huge kick out of making 4 foot wide bubbles. There were sections devoted to color and sight, and another to sound and listening. Abby loved creating her own music. There was the mechanical area with the pendulums and there was also an electricity section. Well…there was far too much to see to describe in this blog. The kids were totally enthralled with the exhibits but also ran from exhibit to exhibit to try and take everything in! After 3 hours the place was starting to get crowded and it became harder and harder to try to keep track of 3 kids going in 3 different directions.So we decided to head out and work our way over to Fisherman’s Wharf to hop on a cable car for the Powel & Hyde line at the turn around. We were lucky to find reasonable (well, reasonable for downtown San Francisco) parking and we he
aded over to the cable cars. We only had to wait about 20 minutes to hop on. While we waited, the girls enjoyed watching them turn the trolleys around by hand. Sarah just couldn’t believe that 2 men could turn around a trolley! Once on board, AJ was beside himself. After each stop he would call out “here we go” to us. This was my first ride on a cable car! The hills in San Francisco are legendary and I couldn’t believe the brakes on those old cable cars just didn’t give way and take us all careening down a hill!We hopped off the trolley 2 blocks from China Town for a little sightseeing and to grab some lunch. We were a little disappointed that the restaurant we wanted to eat at closes completely for 2 hours between lunch and dinner. We were looking forward to some good Dim Sum. Obviously, it wasn’t too hard to find another Chinese restaurant nearby! Lunch itself was an interesting experience. Sarah loves to go to Chinese restaurants to eat plain white rice. Little miss picky loves plain everything, especially rice. She talks about “Chinese rice” as if it is a delicacy. It makes us laugh! Abby hates Chinese food (well she thinks she does because we c
an’t ever get her to try it!). When making plans for our day, all we heard from her was that she didn’t want to eat Chinatown! Tony headed off her hungry grumpies with a hot dog from a street vendor before we hopped on the trolley. We did order some plain lo-mein noodles for her and were pleasantly surprised when she tried them and liked them! Sarah did try some sweet and sour chicken. She was NOT impressed. AJ responded to all offers of food with a polite “no fank you” and happily played with his chop sticks the whole time. As Tony was paying the check and we were gathering up our things to leave, in walked a woman with a heavy New York accent. She walked over to one of the waitresses (who was Chinese) and asked where Chinatown was. Even Sarah let out a big laugh on that one. The waitress was very patient and just pointed out the window and said “out there.” All I could say was “wow!” After lunch we were on a mission to find The Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Bakery. It is located on an alley in Chinatown. Alleys are not on conventional city maps. As we were strolling down a street, I happened to look down and noticed a brass plaque on the sidewalk that was a map of Chinatown’s alleys. Fortunately for us (ha ha) we found t
he bakery and were fascinated to watch the cookies being made. We picked up a fresh bag of cookies to bring back with us. As we were wandering around Chinatown, we encountered a “man” coming out of a retro furniture store. His leather vest, flamboyant hair, tattoos and piercings were not his most unusual accessory – it was the ball python he had wrapped around his arm. He happily introduced our family to his girl Cleo – you know Cleopatra. Sarah, seemingly in disbelief, commented she had never seen a guy walking around with a snake before. Tony told her that the thing about visiting a big city was you not only get to see the cool stuff, but you get to see the weird stuff too. How else do you explain that to an 8 year old?It was getting pretty late
in the afternoon and AJ was beat! We also wanted to get a move on before rush hour got too bad. We hiked our way back uphill to pick up another cable car to take us back over to get our car. The entire way back Abby kept asking what we were going to do next. She really wanted to see the Golden Gate Bridge. Tony promised her he would let her see it on the way back to the camper. We pulled into the lot at the visitor’s center only to discover Abby was fast asleep after such a busy day! AJ was also out for the count, so Sarah and I got out and took a quick look. As we pulled into the lot of the campground, Abby woke up and scolded Tony for not taking her to the bridge! That kid has the memory of an elephant! We made some dinner and tried to get everyone to bed to rest up for our last day in the city.
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