Finishing Thursday, October 14th

After we got off the cruiser, we made a great discovery. We were headed towards the AQUARIUM OF THE BAY, which is the place that Cora most wanted to join us at, when we were drawn to this incredible sounding band. Anyone who knows me knows that I am captivated by good music like nothing else--well, maybe except for GOOD food. ;) Anyway, I was drawn to the sound like bears to honey.


We pushed through the people and looked in vain for the band. As we got closer to the sound, though, we saw that it was only ONE man playing the strangest looking stringed instrument that I have ever seen. We made our way over to the table and stared at the man as it slowly registered that he was making ALL of that sound with just one instrument.

When he finally finished his song, Robert spoke first and asked him if that instrument was making ALL of that sound. The man laughed and said, "Yes" and started to answer our questions as to what it was called. Bob Culbertson became a part of our lives then as he explained that the instrument is called the Chapman stick and it's only been around for less than 2 decades.


Bob said, "I've played in many different countries and I'm the only one in the world who has designed a course to study the stick at home." I thought of my boys immediately and wondered if one of them would someday fill our home with such awesome music.

As you can imagine, we didn't want to wait that long. We bought 3 of his CDs, as gifts to the children. Later we sent them to Bob's website to wet their appetite. You, too, can hear Bob's awesome skill and wet your own appetite to buy a stick by going here: http://www.stickmusic.com/. I must say, though, that it may be a long time until we have the money for a stick of our own as they range in price from $1,500 to $3,000.

I do regret now that Robert and I were both so dumbstruck at the beauty of his amplified stick music filling Pier 39, that neither one of us thought to take a picture of Bob. This is close to where he was standing, though, so this will have to do. Notice the entrance to AQUARIUM OF THE BAY in blue on the right. That's where we went to next which also was covered with our city passes.

This aquarium, just inside the door, was round with a diameter of about 7 feet and it stood about 9 feet tall. I was captivated and began my quest to capture a school of swarming fish with my little digital camera. We gazed at the many "Small" aquariums until one of the staff told us that there was much more to gaze at downstairs, so off we went.
I never was very successful at capturing those swirling, whirling schools but I did get some nice shots of larger, slower specimens of fish hood.

If you grew up in a German home like I did, you learned the meaning of the word, ECKLE. To be eckled means that you can't stop gazing at something, even when it grosses you out. It's so odd that it's amazing but, to stare at it for long, you get chills down your spine by it's ugliness. If this has ever happened to you, then you have been eckled. Well, this was the first of many things that eckled me at the AQUARIUM OF THE BAY! I just loved the place! Praise God for His endless creative abilities!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This was the first thing that we saw when we got downstairs. It was a very large aquarium filled with these see-through jellyfish.

The sign said that, if you look closely, you can see the undigested food in the four stomachs of these Moon Jellies. See if you can see it on this close-up. I wasn't even one bit eckled--I was fascinated.

This was another type of jellyfish. I have never been so captivated by movement in my life as when I watched this creature of the sea. If I had known how to use the movie function on my camera, I'd have captured this incredibly beautiful movement. All of that white stuff inside the yellow "bowl" moved as the bowl squeezed in and out. This is how it propelled itself forward and the white stuff flowed as hair in a gentle breeze. I could hardly stop watching.

These fish tried to disappear in the sand at the bottom of the aquarium. We thought that they were dead at first, but then one of them blinked. :)

Then I saw a shark--a big one. It was way in the back of the tank so it was too dark to capture him. Then he turned and swam right beside me. I was so stunned that I couldn't speak, let alone take a picture. Robert was ahead of me so, when I could think, I told him that the shark was coming his way. Robert put his hands against the side of the tank, as the shark swam by, and caught his length. He was THIS big and just on the other side of the glass!!!!!!!!

This, I think, was the most fascinating thing in all of California--Filoli; whales; and the redwoods excluded. This guy was attached to the glass at my eye level. I have never seen a starfish, let alone watch one feed. I tried in vain to explain my wonder to the children when we looked through our 1,700 + pictures later at home.

As you can see here, the sea star feeds on his underside. For lack of a better term, it looks as though he has hundreds of little macaroni sticking into him there. These little tubes were constantly scanning through the water for minuscule bits of food--moving back and forth. When a bit of food came close, the starfish used his vacuum cleaner suction and sucked it up in the tube. I was so fascinated that Robert had to tear me away with his words, "There goes the shark again!

This is another attempt to capture a school of hundreds of shiny, little fish.

Finally we came to a place where one can sit down and rest--the AQUARIUM OF THE BAY IS HUGE!!!! As I sat resting a bit, none other than the big guy himself (a Sevengill Shark) came and swam RIGHT OVER THE TOPS OF OUR HEADS!!!!!!!!! What an awesome moment--everyone was totally quiet in awe of the opportunity that we were having to be so close to this fine creature. I couldn't even capture the full length of him as you can see.

How I wish that I could remember the name of this type of fish. They were my favorite and so beautiful with their lovely iridescent spots.

This place was a place of education too. I learned here that the San Francisco Bay is an estuary where fresh water from several rivers and creeks merges with the salt water of the Pacific Ocean. Please take a few moments to read this sign if you hope to have this blog post be an educational experience even a tiny bit.

When we got to the end of the two 300 foot tunnels which hold 700,000 thousand gallons of filtered bay water and house 20,000 aquatic animals, we took the elevator back upstairs.
Now we found ourselves in a place called TOUCH THE BAY! Literally!!!

There were 2 touch pools that re-create California's rocky shoreline. In it were leopard sharks; bat rays; sea cucumbers; and sea stars. Here Robert is touching a leopard shark, carefully following the directions shared by the staff member. She explained to us that these animals are raised in the pools since babyhood so are relatively calm around humans. Still one needed to make sure to touch them in certain places and in a gentle manner. I only worked up my courage to touch a sea star but preferred to enjoy sharks and such from a distance. This shark was pretty sleepy but moved away after Robert stroked him a few times.

Totally fascinated by God's incredible creation that lives in the ocean, we were saddened when it was announced that they were closing the building for the day. After going down this escalator, we again found ourselves out on Pier 39--this time with more time to explore.

As Bob's wonderful stick music filled the whole area, Robert and I started wandering down the "Street" to explore one of the most famous areas of San Francisco. You can catch a glance into a few of the shops that I found most interesting. Shark teeth anyone?

How about entering this cute, little shop which was stuffed full of cable car souvenirs? Can you believe that Robert and I were in the San Francisco area for a whole week and did NOT take a ride on a cable car? If you would have seen the wonderful events that the children had planned for us, you'd see why there was not nearly enough time to take in everything. Besides, with parking costing a quarter for 5 minutes in the parking meters, I'm not sure that we could have afforded the luxury of a cable car ride. I guess it will have to be the thing that draws me back there sometime in the future. :)

All along the walkway there were these cute baskets of foliage. They were about 6 feet in diameter so they were not small. Isn't this an awesome way to dress up a corner of your yard?

Jewelry stores were everywhere in San Francisco. We only made 2 purchases in them and these were lovely combs for Cora and my hair. I think that Cora has shown hers already so I'll have to get a picture of mine to post here later. It's a big star and it's studded with all kinds of diamonds, don't you know. The sign on the store said that there was a retirement sale going on so everything was 90% off. I'm quite certain, then, that I would never have been able to afford the lovely comb at full price. We did notice later on, though, that everyone of the stores had a sale of some sort going on at the time. Wasn't that nice of them to all have special sales during the week that we just happened to be in California? ;)

Some of the store owners were very cleaver with their store names. This one was full of treasures from Ireland but the name reminded me of a book I've heard about a time or two.

Ooops. I guess I cut off the whole name here but this shop is called the SOCK MARKET. I never knew that there were so many different kinds of socks--oh my!

This one I just HAD to get a picture of but we moved along VERY quickly then.

Finally we found ourselves back out by the bay again. We were so glad that we had gone out just then as this is the closest that we actually got to one of these big, heavily laden ships. WOW!

"There they are," Robert said as he pointed to these sleepy critters. We had been reading about how the sea lions had token over Pier 39 years ago although most of them are out in the ocean in the summer and fall. I guess these are just a few of the ones who fill up these docks during the winter months.

There was a crowd of about 500 people out strolling on the outside of Pier 39. I'm assuming that we were all tourists who had come past the shops to get a bit of lovely evening California air AND to get a look at the sea lions who control this part of the wharf. The numbers of cameras and oohs and aahs told me that this was not something that many of us had ever seen before.

However, it was all a bit "Boring" as I had spent all morning at Filoli and the afternoon on the bay or exploring it in the aquarium. I found myself yawning when I noticed that there was some kind of official boat gliding towards us AND the sea lions. Then things started to change.

It was so hilarious as the sea lions caught sight of that boat. I told the children later that they were just like our goats or geese when they see you coming towards them with a pail of grain. All of a sudden, the creatures came to life and started bellering their welcome to the boat. One nudged the other and pretty soon the docks were rocking like wild. I thought they were going to be fed and I'm pretty sure that they thought that they were going to be also.

I wish that you could have heard them as they flopped off the docks into the water and swam to the boat with anticipation. Then the boat turned around and slipped away amidst GREAT protests from the sea lions. There was a terrible roaring and flapping amongst them then and they swam in the water and yelled, "Cheater" after the boat. The crowd loved it and I found myself laughing with great mirth.

There was nothing to do but climb back onto the docks. This was hilarious to watch as the older, larger specimens climbed on the dock right by the edges. This left the smaller, younger ones trying to find places where they could climb back on the docks. There was CONSIDERABLE noise and everyone just loved it. Afterwards, I concluded that the boat came by to give all of us tourists something to laugh about and talk about when we went home to our land-locked homes in North Dakota and elsewhere.

After that show, I was getting a little cold; more tired; and VERY hungry. We decided to go back down the boardwalk and try to find something to eat for supper. We walked on the other side now and saw different shops and things of interest like PUPPETS ON THE PIER...

GADGET WORLD that I knew the boys would have loved sticking their noses into had they been there....

and this beautiful carosel called the SAN FRANCISCO CAROSEL. Robert was going to buy us some tickets to ride on it, but they said that they wouldn't be running it for another half hour. Our appetites wouldn't allow us that long of a wait, so we moved on.
We had fun looking at all of the restaurants on the pier and finally decided on one on the upper deck. It was sooooooo ramantic to walk up the steps and along the top sidewalk to the one shop that looked as though it may have some food that we'd both enjoy delighting in. The smells of the food coming out of the open restaurants were tantalizing to one who had only had an early breakfast and one and a half pieces of cold pizza for lunch.

It was now about 8:00 PM and I was ravenous and eager to eat out after packing lunches and eating in the hotel room all week. However, when the waiter showed us the menu it was easy enough to forget my hunger for another hour. We had both been prepared to splurge a bit but when we noticed that the least expensive item on the menu was meatloaf and that it cost $16 a plate, we told the man, "Thank you" and headed back to the parking garage where we had left our rental car.

After charging the $48 fee for parking in the garage all afternoon and evening to our credit card, we were happy to head back home to San Bruno. It was an hour drive to the hotel but it wasn't quite so daunting to be driving around the area anymore. It was dark by the time we got "Home," so we were glad to be off the streets and safe in our room again.

Half an hour later, we were enjoying our burritoes, fresh from the microwave, and thankful that we had food. Then we tele- something or othered the children on the laptop and they watched
us eat our supper as we ranted and raved about all that we had seen and heard that day. Before we were finished talking, Andrew had already gone to Bob's website and heard him play the stick. I must admit it, though I swallow hard to do so, technology does have it's ways of keeping families together.

I was so tired that night that I fell asleep almost instantly which was a good thing as we had to be up VERY early the next day. Now that I am tired again, I will close with the concept that it doesn't seem possible that our trip could keep getting better and better every day, but it DID. I hope that you're enjoying reading about it as much as I am enjoying reminiscing.

Sleep well to all my loved ones out there. I trust that you, too, are thankful for the wonders of technology in bringing us closer together in heart even when the miles separate us. Bravo for blogger!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dawn