CAS - an interesting day trip

We have been to the California Academy of Sciences a few times now. We don't go there as often as the Mystery spot! 

The California Academy of Sciences is a favorite for the whole family because they have something of interest for everyone and they keep changing their exhibits every few years. So there is always something new to look forward to. 

Given our kids used to enjoy this place when they were close to 7 and 10, we went with the BIL's family to CAS and thought the 4 girls would have a great time and they did!

There are a few things that have stayed. The first thing you see is the Albino Alligator. He has started developing some color in his old age?! He is still a master at Shavasana. If there is a thing or two to learn from this creature, it is its ability to be absolutely still with its eyes open with all the stuff going on around it. I had to capture a time lapse video to see it move. 

Whenever I am in yoga class and the teacher says "the warm up set is done! it is party time! you can now drink water".. there is a rush of movement towards the floor.. some folks sit down. some grab waters, hand towels, wipe off sweat (which is going to come right back), some folks start setting up a minibar in the 30 second break.. I try to stay still and stare at myself without moving a muscle during this "party time" and have gotten better at it over time. Someday I should ask the yoga studio to do a timelapse video during this "party time" and maybe I will look like this alligator. Where were we, and why are we suddenly talking about yoga?!

Back to CAS! Most of the user interactive exhibits were closed because of COVID. Anything where you touch stuff, adjust stuff, all disabled. So that took the fun out of most things for the really small kids. The rest of the exhibits were still fine. We walked through the 5 storied rainforest set up inside a building with 100 foot trees and a swamp at the bottom of it! It is one amazing place that you have to see to believe.

San was still in the limping stage then with her ankle sprain and she had to minimize walking. We covered all the open exhibits in 4 hours. The kids loved the shark exhibit and the ones on geology and gem stones. They spent 45 minutes just at that exhibit learning about minerals! It was good for me to remember some of those names as we had to learn them all during metallurgy days. My kids were impressed with my knowledge of which mineral had which element in it. 

The planetarium show was open, but it had restricted seating and you had to book it separately ahead of time online. We did not know that when we bought the tickets. So we missed that one! 

It was a gloomy day in SFO and we made it back as it started drizzling! A day well spent, even though we had to be indoors wearing a mask the whole day!

Here are some pictures..

we were greeted at the entrance by a masked T-rex! You can count on the CAS to get the point across on the importance of masks during a pandemic. They had hand sanitizers, signs on COVID and subtly were talking about COVID in every place in a way only they can do! 

The underwater exhibits here are just amazing!

Here is kids being kids, watching penguins..

here is the older kids being kids.. I am sure there is an exact replica picture from 10 years ago at the same place...

and here is my baby zebra among stuffed zebras..

We went to the bottom of the pool exhibit for the first time. Usually there are long lines for this type of thing and one good thing about visiting during COVID is to get to see some things we missed in the past..

We also had sandwiches for lunch which we had taken from home and had coffee and hot cocoa from the cafeteria. There were not that many takers for the cafeteria which was interesting. 

The usual selfies..

some shots of the critters we see . . it felt good to grab my camera and focus on things after such a long time..

This spider was the size of my palm! 

a long list.. so will put the rest of the images in a slideshow!

and a video that catches some of what we saw including the time lapse..

yet another place that we will visit again, given the chance, in a few years.. when they change the exhibits again!