Nearly There

We spent last night in a highly comfortable king size bed in the suite at Comfort Inn, and now tonight in a house! *gasp* To be honest, we've had some pretty god sleeping arrangements on this trip, the worst one was probably sleeping in the car next to the train tracks... but wait... Bonnie slept through that! So yeah, it was all pretty great :-)

We woke up Wednesday morning (the second day of 2008!!!!) and Bonnie copied off the directions for the day: we'd be using *drum roll* public transport! Coming from Fairbanks and Bozeman this was... well... a ah, new feature. That day we used three modes of transport: Muni bus (San Fran,) Bart (underground train to Berkeley,) and the the Berkeley bus system to get to our final destination.

#1 on our list for the day was the Exploritorium... until we discovered the Palace of Fine Arts anyway. A gorgeous series of walls, columns, and other architectural feats, it was really a pleasure to wander through. We did make it inside the Exploritorium though (YAY for free wednesday!) and had a blast experimenting and exploring for a whole... two hours. Deffinately worth that, and more time if we could, but then it was on to Pixar.

After a ride on the Bart we arrived at the Pixar complex (an entire block) and were given our "strangers from the outside" nametags as registered guests. Geoffrey quickly removed our cameras (smart guy...) and then took us on the "standard tour route" which, it turns out, was backward. We saw some amazing sculptures, sketches, paintings, and renderings from the most recent film: Ratitoulee (not spelled right...) Then we got to see Geoff's office and he introduced us to one of his coworkers who had some opinions for Bonnie on art schools. The verdict? "Academy of Art is TAKING OVER!!!"

We made a quick stop at Geoffrey's and then it was off again in the car to Redding, where we spent the night at the Hilton without free wireless. The next day we drove to Reedsport, spent the night, and then spent about two hours on the coast of Oregon... before making a run for it inland. We managed to avoid all storms and stayed safe.