It was a crazy, fun experience to be in a huge metropolitan city for five full days.  Each night we slept in a huge bed, had a shower in easy reach, and the run of a complete kitchen.  During the day we did tourist activities with Jason’s parents to see the sights, and in the evenings we watched movies or played pool or pinochle.  I saw ‘we’, but really I (Daisy) missed out on some of the fun to arrange my defense details and put a little more work on my dissertation.  It was a good time all around though.  I will share some highlights.

We rode the famous cable cars, and went to the cable car museum to learn about their history and how they work.  It is really neat!  There are giant motors that move massively long cables across the city at 9.5 miles per hour.  The cable cars sit above these cables routed in the streets, and the car operators control a device that grips the cable to tow the car up and over the hills.  To slow the cars, they let go of the cable and apply thick pine wood brake pads.  You can smell the pine when you go down the hills!

The next day Jason’s parents were wonderful enough to get us a rental car so we could drive north to visit Guide Dogs for the Blind’s main campus for a tour.  I raised 9 dogs for them between the ages of 12 and 22, and always love seeing where the dogs are bred, trained, and matched with their partners.  We had a wonderful tour, and learned a lot about what measures they take to ensure the dogs can safely guide their people.  There is an obstacle course to help train the dogs to look up and stop when there are things a person would hit but a dog could walk under.  They even train them around the sneaky silent Prius’s to make sure the dogs know to listen for their quiet sounds!  Yes, there were also cute baby puppies that we got to see!

On the way back to the city we stopped to check out the Bay Model: it is a scale model of the San Francisco watershed with working tides.  Scientists constructed it decades ago to see how the area would be impacted by proposed developments.  Nowadays computer models (and statistics!) made the physical model obsolete, so they open it for tourists and school groups.  Jason loved it!  We also stopped for some photo and more views of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge.  What a beautiful day!

Jason and his parents spent a full day at the Academy of Sciences.   I stayed back at the timeshare to do work, but I am pretty sure they had a blast!  They also went to the Conservancy of Flowers in Golden Gate Park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We left the city pretty early on Saturday, around 9,  but the city was slow to awaken and we had a wonderful ride out.  The streets were pretty empty, and we waved goodbye to city hall as we headed back out to the coast.  Los Angeles, here we come!