April 20th, 2014

[most pics were on the other camera]

we ended up spending our last half-day at the exploratorium again.  our last pass in the citypass was for the ca academy of the sciences, but they wanted to 'touch' and not just 'see' the stuff, so we came back.  as a CA teacher, i was able to get a free ticket for me (i had to apply last night, online) and students/kids/seniors were only $19) so i ponied up the $ this time.

they really had lots of fun.  again!  we spent about 4.5hrs more here this morning

 this was a creepy looking head:

 38 years in the making...this is scott weaver's masterpiece made out of toothpicks.  he just happened to be here when we visited, which was cool (i overheard him say that he happened to have the day off from his day job at lucky's supermarket)

 the monochromatic room

observation deck

this was our last pic, before heading out to chinatown for matthew's 15th birthday dim-sum lunch! (by his request, of course!)

then after lunch, we took the 8x-muni bus to get back to pier 39 and walked back to the hotel.

i think i was actually getting better at this whole muni/railway system!

our bellies were full...we started the 6.5hr drive home...

except for one accident on our side of the freeway (near oakland) we had a pretty good drive.  we passed a number of pretty ugly accidents, but all on the opposite side.  thank goodness!  up until we got super close to los angeles.  there was A LOT of traffic.  dodger game letting out?!  who knows?  lots of cars.