Biophilliac Mommy: San Francisco Day Five: Discovery Museum and Coit Tower

Thursday, October 18, 2012

San Francisco Day Five: Discovery Museum and Coit Tower

Day five in San Francisco was a very special Meo day. While we were in the toddler museum at the Science Academy the previous day, one of the moms kindly told me about the discovery museum across the Bay in Sausalito. She told me there was huge areas dedicated to toddlers and that Meo would love it. That night, I checked out the website and found that every first Wednesday of the month was free, which happened to be that very Wednesday! I decided that Mattimeo would take the ferry back over to Sausalito, and we would have a Meo fun day at the discovery museum.

So Wednesday morning we got up with Robbie, kissed him goodbye (he had another early morning at the conference so couldn't have breakfast with us), and headed out to the ferry building to catch the 10:15 ferry to Sausalito. We had plenty of time before the ferry got there, so I nursed Meo and we shared a egg and cheese breakfast sandwich while I enjoyed my first pumpkin latte of the season. Yum! Then we waited for the ferry, and Meo was very busy thinking he was a riot running off from me.

Ferry Morning; quiet on a Wednesday morning

We are still walking up

Pumpkin Latte

Waiting for the ferry

The ferry ride over was nice. It was much less busy than the last time we went on one, so we got our choice of seats. Unfortunately I chose a seat that was sopping we and ended up being preoccupied with trying to dry off my butt with the breeze the whole ride. Meo slept through the ferry ride, and then slept through our taxi ride to the Bay Area Discovery Museum once we docked.

Alcatraz

View of the Golden Gate Bridge from the ferry

Meo and I on the ferry

Golden Gate bridge and some ships

Meo and I in front of the Golden Gate Bridge on the ferry

The Bay Area Discovery Museum is located right at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge, so it was pretty cool to get a closer look at this massive structure.

Golden Gate Bridge from the Discovery Museum parking lot

The setup of the Discovery Museum was pretty unique. There was an entrance building that you got tickets in and could go to the souvenir shop, then you stepped back outside and the rest of the museum had exhibits each in their own building/area.

Entrance

The Discovery Museum

The first building on the left was the Tot building, and this is were we spent most of our day. It was made of three separate areas: two rooms indoors, and one water are outside. Mattimeo had fun playing in all three!

Here was the first room:

Making friends

This little girl was helping Meo push the button so bubbles would come out of the frogs mouth

Mattimeo loved watching the bubles

Sliding down backwards

Exploring the tunnel very carefully

Okay, enough of this room, what's over there!

Here was the second room:

Climbing up the ant hill

My little ant

It took him a little while to work up the courage to crawl through this tunnel (He didn't want to bump his head)

"Come on Meo! You can do it!"

Yay! You did it!

Thinking about crawling through some more, that was fun!

Chomping on the hawk's beak

Aw, snuggling the hawk!

This pad was really soft, and Meo loved rolling around on it

When you pushed on these bugs, they made the appropriate sounds!

Listening to the grasshopper over and over

Pushing blocks through the holes

Meo decided to carry the blocks around

Happy cave explorer

After having lunch with a very nice grandmother who had brought her 2 year old grandson to the museum, Meo and I went to check out one of the buildings before returning to the tot building. Trusting the grandmother's recommendation, we headed to the Clifford building. It was pretty cool, it was full of life size Clifford (the big red dog) activities. Meo really liked playing on Clifford's tail, searching through treasure chests and playing in the "sand box" best. But there was a lot of big kids in this room, and they kind of pushed Meo around so we ended up leaving.

Clifford!

Fun on Clifford's tail

Playing in the "sand box"

Feeling this net

Meo found a red dog ball in one of these chests and carried it around for a while

"Mama, come read this book to me!" (I did).

Banging on the drum

Then we headed back to the tot are to play in the water section and explore the other rooms again. Here are some photos from the water section:

A fish!

Got it!

Aren't these fish kind of scary looking??

Of course his favorite thing was climbing up and down the stairs

Peeking over by the waterfall

I really had so much fun just setting Meo free and watching him explore and have fun. He is both interesting and entertaining to watch! And there was so much for him to do there, we barely scratched the surface. I think Meo had a great day too!

After the museum, we took a ferry back to San Francisco and met up with Robbie. It was still a little early for dinner, so we let Meo wonder around in the park for a bit while we caught up on each others days. Meo was busy chasing birds and exploring the giant water sculpture.

Birds!

running down the slope

Don't touch bird poop Meo!

Then we walked over to eat in an awesome restaraunt Robbie found in Chinatown. It was awesome because it was entirely vegetarian, and nothing on the menu had garlic or onions in it! Both things I can't eat! I was thrilled. And the food was delicious! Meo made a huge mess with the rice though...

Park in the city with redwood trees that we saw on our way to dinner

Heading into Chinatown

Enjoy Vegetarian Restaraunt

At the restaurant

They gave Meo his own adorable cup and bowl

No garlic, onions or MSG!

Yummy appetizers

My food

Robbie's food

After dinner, we decided to walk home. We saw the distant Coit Tower on top of Telegraph Hill and decided we needed to climb up to it. And boy was it a climb! We though we just had to go up one hill and it would be right there.

Going up! The road was so steep, the sidewalk was a staircase!

Steep!

I like how it was called "steps" instead of road or street

But there was another hill.

View from the hill

View from the top of the hill

And then up some more!

More stairs!

Almost there

Made it! Robbie in front of Coit Tower

View from Telegraph Hill

Bay Bridge as seen from Telegraph Hill

Meo and I in front of Coit Tower

I had to wear my hood because Meo was being a punk and pulling my hair

Inside Coit Tower

Robbie in Coit Tower

The lit the tower up as we were leaving

And of course, to get back to the hotel, we had to go all the way back down...and then some. For some reason, Meo though all the climbing (both up and down) was hilarious and was laughing most of the time. His laughing was contagious, and all three of us had so much fun giggling, singing, and taking in all the new sights as the sun set over San Francisco.