San Fran Day 1

So before I get started on our CA adventures, I wanted to remind you to check out the Giveaway I’m holding sponsored by Uncommon Goods. There’s a $50 Gift Certificate up for grabs, so it’s well worth your time to put in an entry!

So last Thursday we headed for the Left Coast. Matt has been wanting attend a Maker Faire since the first one 5 years ago and finally we were able to get to the right city at the right time and do the Maker Faire thing (and I will tell you all about that tomorrow). After a nice flight in, we grabbed a late dinner and headed to our hotel. Everyone was exhausted, but of course the kids were up early the next morning. We grabbed some snacks at Trader Joe’s – the hotel was right across the street from one (yay!) and headed into the city.

We were set to meet up with my bloggy friend Liz and her girls at the Bay Area Discovery Museum. We made it on time (miraculously!) and Liz and her girls arrived a few minutes later. The Bay Area Discovery museum was amazing and we all had a great time. It’s constructed from some old army barracks and is sort of a kids’ museum in the style of an outdoor mall: a few buildings with different purposes. It was fairly similar to the other children’s museums I’ve been to but the outdoor component was great and helped you never feel too crowded in with everyone.

The kids played well together and we had a great time and to top it all of it was a beautiful day. It was such a pleasure to meet Liz – she was just like I anticipated and I had a lot of fun chatting with her and her darling girls. Both of my kids were so sad to see their new friends go and have talked about them ever since! We had a scary few minutes (felt like several hours!!) though when Ben wandered away from the art studio. A member of the museum staff noticed I  was looking for someone (and probably the manic look in my eyes) and asked if she could help. She radioed to all the other sites and gave a description of Ben. They radioed back and checked in and found him across the way at the playground. Such relief!!

My personal favorite part of the museum was the beautiful willow sculpture by Patrick Dougherty. It is woven from living willow and just incredible – like a real fairy castle. The site also posted some amazing views of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.

After the museum, we headed to Muir Woods.

We got to see some pretty sights along the way owing to a goof up with the phone navigation and going 20 miles out of our way (doh!).

We finally got to Muir Woods and were so glad we persevered. We didn’t have time to go quite as far as we liked, but we got to do a 1.5 mile loop with the kids.

The trees were incredible – but more than that, the tranquility and beauty of the space, especially tucked down in this valley not so far from the city was amazing.