Monday, December 22, 2008

it's not the destination, it's the journey


On Sunday, we visited the newly renovated California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Here's how we got there:
  • Leave house at nine. Walk to the Rockridge BART station. (About 25 minutes, at a kid-friendly pace.)
  • 9:34 train to downtown San Francisco, Powell Street Station. (About 25 minutes travel time.)
  • Before leaving BART station, we get transfer for 25 cents off Muni fare.
  • On Market Street wait for 5 Fulton. (See photo.) Bus stops now feature a ticker tape-like feed from nextmuni.com announcing when next bus will arrive. (It has been a long time since I was a regular Muni rider so, for all I know, nextmuni.com could be old news. When we were in Sweden two years ago, bus stops there also indicated when the next bus would arrive and we cited that as yet another reason -- along with fantastic urban parks and liberal maternity leave policies -- why Scandinavia is superior to the US.)
  • #5 bus winds its way up through the Tenderloin, past Civic Center, through Hayes Valley, past the USF campus and eventually up Fulton Street which borders Golden Gate Park. We get off at 8th Street. (About 20 minutes)
  • 10 minute walk through the park. Arrive at Cal Academy at around 10:45, a mere one hour, forty-five minutes after departure.
  • Bonus: visitors to the Cal Academy who travel there by public transport get a $3 discount on the price of admission.
Oh, and did I mention it was raining the whole time?