My last informative e-mail from San Francisco came after our day at Yosemite. I sent the e-mails to just about everyone I know that reads this blog so I’ll let those e-mails suffice to cover those days of the trip.
On Tuesday the 24th we went to the Exploratorium, an experimental science museum.It’s a hands-on museum designed to spark curiosity—regardless of your age or familiarity with science. We went there because part of the City Pass we bought was admission to the museum. This is also the place where we dropped our guard and lost some good stuff to a car break-in.
The Exploratorium (http://www.exploratorium.edu/) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploratorium) itself is in a huge building on the grounds of the Palace of Fine Arts. The palace was built for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition (http://www.exploratorium.edu/palace/index.html), which had as its centerpiece a huge dome supported by Corinthian pillars.
The hands-on exhibits were fun and interesting. My favorite exhibit was the huge convex mirror they had on loan from NASA. It used to be part of a simulator and the visual effects you had just by walking towards and away from it were fascinating. Besides focusing light it also amplified your voice when you stood right in the focus point. The mirror was so precise that when you looked at it you saw your image upside down in apparent 3-D there in front of you.
One feature I liked was the fact that they made the tile in front of the restroom in such a manner that it presented an optical illusion. The black and white tile with grey grout makes the straight lines look curved. It only works with grey grout!
After the museum and discovering the broken window on the car we headed to lunch at Rocco’s, a restaurant we saw on the TV show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. We had a delicious Italian meal, talked with the owner, Don Rocco and even had our picture taken with him.
m.
On Tuesday the 24th we went to the Exploratorium, an experimental science museum.It’s a hands-on museum designed to spark curiosity—regardless of your age or familiarity with science. We went there because part of the City Pass we bought was admission to the museum. This is also the place where we dropped our guard and lost some good stuff to a car break-in.
The Exploratorium (http://www.exploratorium.edu/) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploratorium) itself is in a huge building on the grounds of the Palace of Fine Arts. The palace was built for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition (http://www.exploratorium.edu/palace/index.html), which had as its centerpiece a huge dome supported by Corinthian pillars.
The hands-on exhibits were fun and interesting. My favorite exhibit was the huge convex mirror they had on loan from NASA. It used to be part of a simulator and the visual effects you had just by walking towards and away from it were fascinating. Besides focusing light it also amplified your voice when you stood right in the focus point. The mirror was so precise that when you looked at it you saw your image upside down in apparent 3-D there in front of you.
One feature I liked was the fact that they made the tile in front of the restroom in such a manner that it presented an optical illusion. The black and white tile with grey grout makes the straight lines look curved. It only works with grey grout!
After the museum and discovering the broken window on the car we headed to lunch at Rocco’s, a restaurant we saw on the TV show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. We had a delicious Italian meal, talked with the owner, Don Rocco and even had our picture taken with him.
m.
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