San Francisco Roadtrip, Part 2

Mission Dolores was founded the same year the Declaration of Independence was signed, and it remains the oldest building in San Francisco. It is absolutely gorgeous, and has a tangible feeling of timelessness in the middle of a bustling city.  A small museum tells all about the Mission and the Ohlone Native Americans who lived in the area.  The cemetery holds the graves of many of the first pioneers, and contains a reconstruction of an Ohlone home.  I wonder how many other major cities still preserve the place where it all began?  

One of the greatest highlights of our trip, for Jasper, was when his father took him to the beach in Alameda.  The western end of the beach has lots of rocks, which can be turned over to find hundreds of tiny crabs that make the rocks their hiding places.  Jasper was enchanted.

Snowy egret and sandpiper.

We expected The California Academy of Sciences would be the best part of our trip.  Jasper is fascinated with reptiles and amphibians, and knows that Cal Academy has a famous herpetology department.  And they were having a special reptile and amphibian exhibit.  (We recently listened to an audiobook, "The Snake Charmer: A Life and Death in Pursuit of Knowledge", by Jamie James, about a Cal Academy herpetologist who was bitten by a many-banded krait. This is not a book that would please many children, but Jasper loved the detailed and nerdy descriptions of snakes that pepper the book.)  And Cal Academy has an aquarium.  In fact, it was oddly disappointing.  While the special exhibit was fine (no photos allowed), many of the museum's regular exhibits have minimal information about the animals on display, and sometimes none at all.  This was especially irritating to Jasper when he found a good-sized cuttlefish that he was dying to know more about.  Its tank was labeled with a nautilus's picture and description.  Their touch pool was made of plexiglass, and was in stark contrast to every touch pool we've ever seen before in that it was not intended to look even a little bit like a natural tidepool.  And it was the first touch pool where Jasper didn't want to linger.  Weirdly, as soon as we entered the building, my husband began to grow ill. He couldn't wait to leave, and as soon as he was outside, he felt entirely better.  This was the very first time in the 19 years that I have known him that I have ever seen him show signs of being allergic to anything.  Given the large number of staff and visitors that pass through their doors, and the number of animals in their care, I certainly hope they aren't using especially harsh chemicals to clean.

We also paid a visit to a very San Francisco cultural institution, the San Francisco Columbarium. (Columbariums are buildings that hold the ashes of the cremated.)  This is a special place because the city had all their cemeteries moved long ago, except the Presidio, a military cemetery, and Mission Dolores, and there are no other columbariums within the city. Millions of people have loved San Francisco and been part of this unique city, but few can be memorialized here. The columbarium had been abandoned and was falling into grave disrepair, when it was purchased by a company that specializes in memorial services that take place on a boat, where ashes are scattered under the Golden Gate Bridge. Painstaking plasterwork and detailed painting were required to restore it to its former glory.  Today the building looks stunning, and the niches hold some remarkable people.  There is no other place I know that is such a celebration of life.  People can choose to have their ashes interred in the usual urns, but most look for something that will really reflect their personality. They are like very unique art installations.  We saw lots of novelty cookie jars in all sorts of shapes, a metal lunch box,  a Chinese takeout container, and a miniature Snap-On tool box.  Lots of poems and letters dedicated to loved ones can be found here, and you can really learn a lot about the people whose ashes rest inside. Most cemeteries are full of mysteries.  A name and some dates reveal almost nothing of the person memorialized, and  you can only wonder what they must have been like.  Here, you have some clues.

(The Chapel of the Chimes, in Oakland, is another example of completely over the top architecture in a columbarium/mausoleum which is truly beautiful, but does not have the same tradition of unique memorials. Colma, just south of San Francisco, is the necropolis where many of San Francisco's cemeteries were moved, and where truly California-style mausoleums can be found for the rich and famous, in many bizarre and opulent forms.  There are also some simpler memorials, such as the final resting place of Levi Strauss.)