ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

The Millenium Building - tallest building in San Francisco


The Bold Robert Emmett







I was running for the train when the barriers came down and my train left without me. I had the number for SamTrans on my phone from when I called them on Saturday. I called to find out when the next bus was coming and as the lady told me it appeared in front of me on El Camino. The cost was cheaper than the train too - just $4.50 to San Francisco.
The bus took about an hour. It stopped in the airport to pick up passengers. It finally left me out at First Street on Mission, right in front of the TransBay Terminal.
I went into the terminal to check out options for getting to Golden Gate Park. There was a wall of transit information but the Muni poster was just the regular route map blown up to poster size and as difficult to read. I called the 311 number and was told that the 5 Fulton bus went directly to the park. I didn't hang about in the terminal. It was a scarey place - a vast empty terminal like Union Station in Los Angeles but without all the crowds. In fact there were very few people there. I didn't feel very comfortable.
My bus was right outside the door. It costs $2.00 to go anywhere on the bus now in San Francisco. For that price you get a transfer that is good for up to two hours and you can use the transfer in any direction.
The bus went through Civic Center and Little Saigon. It went down Market Street and up McAllister and across Divisidero and up Fulton passing by St. Ignatius church at USF. It was pretty crowded the whole way.
I probably went less than 3 miles on the bus but the temperature swung 30 degrees from Mission Street. There was fog rolling in and a wind whipping up as I walked through the park to the new Academy building. I was cold in my shorts - who knew there would be a 40 degree difference between San Francisco and Menlo Park. That's wild climate change.
I used Rich's membership card to get into the Academy. The building is an amazing space but I kept looking for the ghosts of places I remembered from the original building. Some things are still there - the swamp, with the famous albino alligator; the courtyard, still there but no longer a courtyard; the aquarium. There are some new things too. A three-storey dome with a walkway that leads through the various levels of a rainforest - live birds and butterflies in the canopy. A "living roof" that simulates the seven hills of San Francisco. A family education center.
It is an impressive building but I felt that it was way too overcrowded for any serious study of the contents. And it lacked an interactive aspect that the old Academy had. The exhibits are to look at not to interact with. That was very disappointing to me.
After the Academy I took the bus back downtown. I had called Evan to meet up with him so I got off the bus at Divisidero and walked to Haight. He had called Richard Lopez to come join us for dinner. We walked to a restaurant in the neighborhood - the Metro Restaurant - and had dinner together.