We were treated to a double rainbow while sitting on our front porch this evening. It’s a little faint to see the double, but it did stretch the length of the other. I’ll now spend the weekend looking for the double pot of gold!

Double Rainbow

Another family fun activity we did while in Columbus over the weekend was to visit COSI, the Center of Science and Industry. We arrived just after their 10 A.M. opening to find that we weren’t the only ones with the idea of getting there early. Fortunately the ticket line for non-members wasn’t bad and we were on our way in minutes.

We were split into two groups for the majority of our visit. My wife took our two-year-old through the Little Kidspace, where he could have easily spent the entire day, while I took my twelve-year-old brother-in-law through the rest of the exhibits. He really seemed to enjoy the Progess exhibit, where we traveled through time and interacted with technology from 1898 and 1962. He was especially amazed at how big the TV’s were. We also spent a good amount of time in the Life exhibit as well as the latest traveling exhibit, Mindbender Mansion & Amazing Mazes, where we had to solve puzzles and got lost in a giant maze.

We stayed through lunch at the Atomic Café, which was better than I expected it to be, before we all moved on to see the Ocean exhibit together. At this point our little one was getting crabby and was ready for his afternoon nap. We could have easily stayed until the 5 P.M. closing but I thought that we saw most of the exhibits during our roughly four-hour stay.

After our walking tour of parts of San Francisco on our first day there, we rented bikes for our second day. We started off on the bikes around 9am in the Civic Center area and headed west through the Haight and toward Gold Gate Park. Before getting to the park we made a quick detour to Alamo Square Park to see the famed “Painted Ladies.” We then biked through most of Golden Gate Park before stopping in for a visit to the California Academy of Sciences. After spending a couple of great hours at the museum, we headed north toward the Golden Gate Bridge, crossed over it and then continued north to Sausalito for dinner. From there we loaded the bikes on the ferry and arrived back in the Fisherman’s Wharf area, where we rode the bikes back down to the Civic Center following the bay along the way. We put in over 20 miles on the bikes and spent the majority of the day out exploring San Francisco. I wouldn’t have done it any other way.

Before leaving town the following day we found time to stop at the Cable Car Museum for a quick visit. It was really cool to see how the cable cars that we had ridden all weekend were operated and what powered them. This free museum is well worth a quick stop.

Sausalito on Dwellable

So after a few days in and around Palo Alto we took the train back north to San Francisco for a few more days of fun and exploring. On the first day we met up with Kim’s friend from college, Melissa, who has lived in San Francisco since graduating from college. She gave us a full day walking tour of the Fisherman’s Wharf and North Beach areas of town. My pictures of the day can be viewed below.

San Francisco on Dwellable

As I already mentioned, the primary reason for our trip to northern California was for the wedding of my friend Joe. Their ceremony and reception took place at the Thomas Fogarty Winery in Woodside, California. It was a lovely spot for a wedding and the weather was fantastic. The winery and vineyards sit high in the Santa Cruz Mountains, providing picture perfect views of the San Francisco Bay area. My photos from the evening can be viewed below.

Kim’s roommate throughout most of college, Amy, has a brother named Troy who attended Stanford University and now works on campus. Troy offered to give us a tour of the campus on our free day in Palo Alto. Since the campus is so large, 8,180 acres to be exact, he arranged for a tour via golf cart. The campus was very picturesque, as you can see below.

A little over a month ago, Washington Park was reopened to the public after a $46 million renovation. We’ve been through the park a couple of times over the last month. Here are some of the photos that my mother has taken of our visits to the park.

Washington Park Entrance

Interactive Fountain

Trey Running Through Fountain

Trey Closeup

Music Hall

OTR Flags

Swinging With Historic Bandstand Behind

At The Playground

The park’s renovation is outstanding! If we lived closer to it I’m sure we would spend a lot of time there. But that won’t stop us from visiting after mass downtown or hopefully for one of the many planned events for the park.

Over the weekend I took my first ever trip to the Red River Gorge in Kentucky. Kim, Trey, and I left early Saturday morning to meet up with some friends who had already camped the night before. Since this was Trey’s first time camping we decided that we should only do one night and see how it went. Trey did great and I really think he loved the hiking and camping. In addition Kim and I both really enjoyed our first trip to the gorge. I’m sure it won’t be the last.

While in Colorado this past weekend we took advantage of the changing seasons to enjoy a pretty drive and some great hiking weather. We drove the rental car out of Denver west on I-70 to Georgetown. In Georgetown we headed south to go up and over Guanella Pass. When we reached US-285 we headed further west to go over Kenosha Pass before heading back north in Como over Boreas Pass and into Breckenridge. The drive was filled with lots of great mountain views and plenty of aspen trees in their wonderful fall golden color.

From there we headed south on CO-9 to the Blue River area for some hiking. I found this trail description and figured it would be a great afternoon hike. Carrying Trey on my back definitely made the hike harder than it should have been, but I think he really enjoyed it. And it wasn’t really bad, it just took longer than I was thinking that it would. The link above says that this is the best hike in Summit County, and though I don’t know if I would go that far, it was still worthy of an afternoon adventure.

Georgetown on Dwellable

Last Saturday I attended the Lunken Aviation Days down at Lunken Airport. I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect from this display of aircraft, but Kim’s family wanted to check it out and we are always up for new things, especially if it is right in our backyard. The display was pretty small and it didn’t take long to make our way through it. The coolest thing on display was the large B-17, Aluminum Overcast.  This is one of only a few surviving B-17 Flying Fortresses in existence. Rides were available for over $450 per seat! I was happy to just take a couple of photos. I wish I would have brought my SLR with me though.