Picnic in the Park

This post is overdue, which seems to be a trend for me lately. I forgot that a regular job is kind of a time suck. But hey, this week I'm home on script so maybe we'll get some more action here at Killer Zucchini.

When I was up in the Bay Area a few weekends back, we took a trip to the new Academy of Sciences. Located in Golden Gate Park, we started off the day with a picnic in Marx Meadow with food we picked up at the Marin Farmers Market that morning.
The featured picnic foods were: a fresh baguette, Bellweather Farms cheeses, an awesome container of duck rillettes, saucisson, smoked salmon, peaches, plums, orange raspberries, figs, dates and olives. We washed it all down with a good Zin and some sparkling water. I think the duck rillettes were my favorite. How can you go wrong with shredded duck and duck fat?

Stacy, Noah and Robin (Noah's mom aka Agile Lady) were waiting for me to finish taking pics so they could eat already. This one makes me giggle - it looks like the wine bottle is up Noah's nose.
This little guy was at the picnic, too. He was grubbing on the bits and pieces of fruit we tossed to him. I think he makes a good living being adorable to picnickers.

Outside the Academy of Sciences.

When I was a kid, the A of S was my absolute favorite place to be. I think there was a time when I made my parents take me at least once a week. Like many children who grew up in the Bay Area in the 1980s, I had this weird obsession with the two-headed snake they had in their reptile room. It was awesome. I was sad to learn he (they?) had died, but they did have him preserved in a jar down in the Lower Level aquarium. There was also the alligator pit (complete with the old seahorse railing), a version of the touch pool (not nearly as good as the old one) and a nice big anaconda (although I felt like they could have had 75% more snakes overall).

They still had a bunch of the dioramas from the Natural History Museum, too. We didn't get there in time to get Planetarium tickets and we weren't into waiting in the long line for the Rain Forest. I was pretty happy with all the changes. And the building looked beautiful.I especially loved the living roof and all the domes. I told Noah we're so doing this when we buy a house. It's like nature and sci-fi had a baby.

Reliving your youth? Definitely a fun way to spend the day.