San Francisco Roadtrip, Part 3

Watching the Tornado Machine.

Not surprisingly, one of the coolest things we did on our San Francisco trip was to visit the Exploratorium.  This place has got to be the world's best hands-on science museum.  It's fascinating for people of all ages.  The vast majority of exhibits are gorgeous to look at, and you are intrigued immediately, before you even have an idea what the science behind the exhibit actually is. They explore each of the senses, weather, electricity, chemistry, astronomy, biology and botany, etc. A person would not be disappointed to spend every day here for a week.  Jasper especially wanted to crawl through the Tactile Dome.  I understood that advance reservations were required and assumed it would be impossible to get in, but was happily surprised to find there was room for us to join the next tour.  The Tactile Dome is a totally dark environment that you crawl, climb, and slide through, with the intention of getting you to explore senses beyond sight. An attendant monitors the space carefully from the center just in case it's too much for anyone.  This was one of Jasper's favorite things about the Exploratorium, so I'm really glad we didn't miss it.

A giant pin board. Thousands of pins hang loosely from a screen, and form the shape of anything pressed against them from below.

Jasper making his own sound recording with fancy radio-style sound effects.

Just outside of the Exploratorium is the Palace of Fine Arts, an amazing structure built for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition out of plaster and burlap, which was so loved that it was completely reconstructed in the 60's out of more permanent materials.  It's a lovely place to stroll.

A short walk from the Exploratorium is the Wave Organ, a magical sculpture that involves concrete pipes which rise out of the water at different levels.  If you place your ear against any one of the holes, you will hear the music of the waves. Each hole makes music of a different pitch.  The Wave Organ was one of the uses that was made of old tombstones, mausoleums, and other cemetery memorials when the city of San Francisco decided to move all but a very few of its graves to Colma, so occasional glimpses of ornate carving can be seen here and there.  When it's not especially foggy, it also has wonderful views of the bay.

At the western end of San Francisco, overlooking the Pacific, are the ruins of the Sutro Baths, which were built in 1896 and demolished in 1966.  They can still be explored.  They overlook Seal Rocks, a place once covered with frolicking sea lions who  began leaving the Seal Rocks after the 1989 earthquake, moving to Pier 39.  Also here you can find the Camera Obscura, a giant pinhole camera, strange and wonderful place.

Jasper would not have missed seeing the Cable Car Museum for anything.  This museum provides an inside look at the inner workings of this remarkable invention, and it's totally free.  It also has an awesome gift shop, where you can find those all important toy cable cars in dozens of styles!

Statue of Cleopatra

A mummified baboon offered to Thoth.

No budding Egyptologist should miss the Rosicrucian Museum of San Jose, one of the finest collections of ancient Egyptian artifacts to be found in this nation.   The building is impressively designed to look like a real Egyptian temple, complete with potted papyrus plants.  Inside, a composite Egyptian tomb has been built complete in nearly every detail.  Genuine ancient artifacts are displayed with careful copies of others, such as the Code of Hammurabi and the Rosetta Stone. And there are careful reconstructions  in miniature of such things as the Tower of Babel, which may or may not have existed, and cannot possibly be pinned down so concretely without a good helping of conjecture.  One simply cannot help but be impressed.   Still, maybe it's the juxtaposition of the real with the faux and sometimes the fanciful, but after a while it began to remind me not a little of Las Vegas and its opulent versions of New York, Paris, and Rome. The staff of the museum, while certainly polite, all seemed a little snappish, like nocturnal creatures forced to awaken in the daytime.  And then at the end of our visit, I ventured into the gift shop and found a book written by the founder of the museum which reveals how Jesus grew up among a mystical society, and eventually was initiated in secret rituals deep within the Great Pyramid of Egypt. And I was glad we had seen the museum, and glad to be moving on.

Stele of Bes watching over  the child Horus, who is walking on crocodiles.  Boys will be boys!

A cast of the Code of Hammurabi.