The California Academy of Sciences is really getting in the holiday spirit this year.
This week, a pair of reindeer arrived at the museum. Yukon and Windy will be hanging out in the Academy’s east garden for watching, photographing, and even touching through the beginning of January.
SFGate has some very funny photos of the reindeer and Santa on the Academy’s living roof, where the animals were permitted to stop for a snack before continuing onto their next destination.
SPOILER ALERT: The reindeer rode the elevator up to the roof, just like the rest of us.
Other holiday treats at the Academy of Sciences include snow falling in the piazza a few times per hour, and an inflatable planetarium that looks like an igloo. They’ll show presentations on the North Pole and life in the Antarctic inside it.
On December 28, the Academy will also host another Penguins + Pajamas party where kids age 6 and up can overnight with a chaperone. How cool would it be to pull THAT from your stocking on Xmas morning?!
If you’re headed to the Academy this holiday season, there’s a couple of ways you can save on your admission ticket:
The Conservatory’s Garden Railway exhibit, opening Friday. That’s the park’s McClaren Lodge in the foreground
Yesterday I got a sneak peek at this year’s miniature Garden Railway at Golden Gate Park’s Conservatory of Flowers. This annual exhibit is one of my favorite things in Golden Gate Park, and this year’s is particularly special as it celebrates the 140th anniversary of Golden Gate Park.
In the exhibit, three G-gauge model trains roll their way by many Golden Gate Park landmarks that occupy its 1,017 acres including the Japanese Tea Garden, the de Young Museum, the Music Concourse Bandshell, the California Academy of Sciences, the Stow Lake Boat House and others.
This year’s Garden Railway landmarks are designed by local trash-to-treasure artist James Sellier who works with the Artist in Residence program at the city dump; he designed the firehouse in last year’s exhibit. Sellier creates the railway’s landmarks out of recycled and repurposed materials – the blades of the Dutch Windmill are made from old rulers while McClaren Lodge incorporates pieces of an old piano. The Golden Gate Park carousel spins on an old record player, at 33rpm of course. The American flag at McClaren Lodge was created from a sock belonging to Sellier’s mother.
The Conservatory of Flowers in miniature
I met Lau Hodges, the Conservatory’s Director of Operations, who told me it takes a dedicated team of five people, including a few horticulturists, to install the exhibit over a two week period. Once the exhibition is running, it requires one to two hours of maintenance per day. And that doesn’t include watering which like any garden, parts of the exhibit need more or less water than others.
Plans for the railway are worked on months in advance, but Hodges said the final layout and finishing touches come together organically during installation. One Conservatory gardener recently came across a bag of hair from the park’s bison paddock, which they’ll be hand-glueing to the small bison figures in the exhibit’s paddock. Anything for authenticity!
The exhibit also incorporates sounds of Golden Gate Park. Listen for calliope music at the carousel, ocean sounds under the Golden Gate Bridge, and Japanese music in the Tea Garden. Hodges said they’ll even have some drum sounds in front of the Conservatory as a special tribute to the drum circle that regularly gathers out front.
The Conservatory’s horticultural staff is responsible for landscaping the Garden Railway, and this year they have the extra challenge of re-creating the park’s most famous gardens on a small scale. Using hundreds of dwarf, living plants, the exhibit includes small-scale versions of the Botanical Garden, Fuschia Dell and Rose Garden. Come spring, they’ll also add the colorful Queen Wilhelmina Tulip Garden to the display.
The de Young museum in miniature, made from recycled and re-purposed materials
“We are delighted to have this opportunity to share the Park’s interesting history and its enduring beauty in this really unique and fun way,” says Brent Dennis, the Conservatory’s Director. “When we realized that 2010 marked the 140th year for the Park, we just knew we had to create a special anniversary edition of our popular garden railway to celebrate. It’s a magical way to highlight the distinctive role the Park has played in the lives of generations of San Franciscans.”
In addition to the main display, there are also two smaller ones that include city landmarks from last year’s garden railway like the Ferry Building, Coit Tower, Victorian row, Transamerica Pyramid, and the Palace of Fine Arts. Kids will recognize Thomas the Tank Engine who pulls one of the trains.
The Conservatory is also offering a special “Conductor for a Day” program this year for kids (or train crazed adults!). Conductors receive a whistle and engineer’s hat and get the chance to start the Garden Railway trains that day.
Visitors can also pose for photos in front of a wall that features a railway depot background, plus learn lots of interesting facts about the history of Golden Gate Park from a large wall map. Like in 1925, when 25 bison broke free of their paddock and wandered into the Richmond and Sunset Districts (police lured them back in with food). Not all of the factoids are warm and fuzzy – the Hagiwara family that ran the park’s original Tea Garden were sent to a WWII internment camp in 1942.
Conservatory of Flower patrons get the first look at the Garden Railway during the annual Gala tonight. It then opens to the public this Friday and runs until March 13, 2011. Access to the Garden Railway is included with a regular Conservatory admission ticket.
This is a wonderful exhibition – be sure to check it out!
Sarah B.
The park’s Dutch Windmill with blades made from recycled rulers
Victorian row houses in one of the side exhibits, made from cereal boxes. That’s Thomas the Tank
Engine pulling the train.
A map filled with fun facts about Golden Gate Park’s 140 year history
The train depot backdrop where visitors can pose for photos
In the latest episode of Richmond District CSI, The Examiner reports that yesterday afternoon, a police cruiser was flagged down near the Polo Fields. Police were then led to a gruesome sight – a severed arm.
Meanwhile, the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed that the body of a male was brought in from Golden Gate Park, but they have not confirmed if it’s missing an arm. The office described it as a “decomp case”, meaning the body was not recently deceased and had begun decomposing.
Police are waiting to notify the family of the deceased before they release any more information about the victim or the case.
You just never know what you’ll find in Golden Gate Park…
This Saturday, Golden Gate Park will celebrate the resurfacing of the tennis courts as part of “Fall Fun Day”.
Stop by between 2pm and 5pm to enjoy some free food, live music, and to get some tennis tips from Youth Tennis Advantage and Mustang Tennis Club from Lincoln High School, who will be hosting on-court activities including group drills, clock your serve, wood racquet tennis and QuickStart tennis.
And if you’re feeling saucy, the NCAA Division I women’s tennis team from USF will be taking on challengers. Who’s got game?
The event is free, open to all ages, and takes place at the Golden Gate Park Tennis Complex (Middle Dr and John F Kennedy Dr across from the Conservatory of Flowers). In the case of rain, the event will be postponed one week until November 20.
The Golden Gate Park Field Guide is the go-to mobile guide for navigating San Francisco’s thousand-acre urban oasis. The app highlights the park’s common wildlife, popular attractions, and hidden gems. It also invites users to actively engage with the park and to record and share their experiences.
The app wasn’t available last night so I didn’t have a chance to try it out before writing this. But if it lives up to its description, it sounds like it will be a great accompaniment to a park visit.
The app includes four main areas:
Field Guide: A dynamic guide highlighting more than 170 of the park’s animal and plant species, including a few surprises like wild coyotes and blackberry bushes.
Park Map: An interactive map and live weather data offer valuable practical information, helping users plan ahead, locate off-the-beaten-path landmarks, and even find which of the park’s 60 attractions, 4 restaurants, or 15 public restrooms are closest to their location.
Adventures: Tour routes provide ideas to enrich any visit, whether travelling by foot, bicycle or car. Scavenger hunts help users discover native species, examples of camouflage in action, and more.
Sightings: “Citizen scientists” can add their own sightings and photos to the growing database, and help record the park’s biodiversity. Recent wildlife sightings are even reported in real-time via the app’s map feature.
Here’s hoping there are no more lost tourists (and locals) in the park now that this app is available. I’m sure the map is for real and all roads don’t lead back to the Academy… Or do they?
And for the record, running into homeless in the park should not be recorded in the app as “recent wildlife sightings”, ahem.
The app is normally $2.99 but the Academy’s press release promises that “early birds can download it free for a limited time.” So get to it and download the app today. Let us know what you think of it by leaving a comment.
The gala event on November 18 will include a Whistlestop Scavenger Hunt, leading from depot to depot through the Conservatory’s Galleries, a raffle with prizes of $500, $750 and $1000, a silent auction, and a new signature wreath auction.
The gala also offers a sneak peek at the Conservatory’s annual Garden Railway Exhibit, whose theme this year is Golden Gate Park. The exhibit will include an all new landscape featuring Golden Gate Park, its many landmarks, water features and botanical elements, all replicated in miniature.
Check out the video below to see last year’s Garden Railway in action, which was made from reclaimed materials.
All proceeds from the gala event support the Conservatory of Flowers youth environmental education programs. Tickets start at $150 per person and can be purchased online.
I know we’re all supposed to have moved onto Christmas by now (Walgreens has – they were shoving over Halloween merchandise yesterday to start stocking ornaments!) but I couldn’t resist this macabre tale from the Bike Nopa website.
On a Sunday morning ride through Golden Gate Park, the NOPA VELO cycling troupe veered off JFK Drive around 10:30am to head up into Stow Lake. That’s when they reported seeing the infamous white ghost of Stow Lake.
She’s been a San Francisco urban legend for many decades, and is apparently the ghost of a woman searching for her lost child (maybe it wandered off for pink popcorn?)
Once we were half-way around the lake, someone shouted, ‘There’s the ghost, across the water near the pagoda.’ We all stopped and sure enough a woman in a white flowing gown was pushing through the reeds like she was looking for something. We all heard a distinctive, eerie wailing as if someone was in deep distress or mourning. We knew the lake was supposed to be haunted, but we had no idea we’d actually see the ghost!
They even called out to the ethereal being (she continued wailing and gesturing). Nearby tourists with small children retreated in fright and “one child ran up the hillside for safety.” The ghost reportedly stuck around for nearly 10 minutes while everyone gaped and carried on. Read the full story at Bike Nopa
The woman ghost of Stow Lake has been a San Francisco urban legend for almost 100 years. There are claims her tragic story appeared in a local newspaper but I’ve never seen any evidence of it:
It is said that a young woman was boating on this lake with her young toddler sometime in the late 1800’s. The toddler accidentally fell into the lake and the young mother in panic, jumped into the water to rescue her baby. It’s said that both her and the young child drowned in the lake. [hauntedamericatours.com]
How does one deal with the emotional trauma of a ghost sighting? Apparently by snacking on Twix bars at Ocean Beach, which was the only thing that could calm the nerves of the 2 wheeled troupe. Ahem.
So, is this fact or fiction? I say “Party foul!” and it’s complete fiction but what do I know… One of my readers claimed on Facebook that her husband saw the ghost 3 years ago on November 2nd. Spoooooooky!
A friend of mine said he noticed fencing all the way around the Polo Fields on Friday. Today, RichmondSFBlog reader rodesfishburne said he heard from SF Rec & Park that the Polo Fields will remain closed until March 2011.
During the closure, they are installing new irrigation and anti-vole technology.
Voles are also known as meadow mice or field mice, and according to Wikipedia they are “a small rodent resembling a mouse but with a stouter body, a shorter hairy tail, a slightly rounder head, smaller ears and eyes, and differently formed molars.”
Perhaps we need more stray cats in Golden Gate Park to eradicate these voles? It would be interesting to know what technology they’re using to ward off these evil voles. I found these stakes that emit a noise at a frequency of 300 Hz and a vibration from the internal motor.
Below is a photo of the work taken a couple of weeks ago. Thanks orion for the tip!
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This Saturday, Golden Gate Park will celebrate the resurfacing of the tennis courts as part of “Fall Fun Day”. 
The 
A friend of mine said he noticed fencing all the way around the Polo Fields on Friday. Today, RichmondSFBlog reader 
It would be interesting to know what technology they’re using to ward off these evil voles. I found these 