Our actual trip home was a far cry from what I had imagined- instead of leisurely exploring the coast, we ended up almost making a straight shot home.  We did make one teensy detour in San Francisco, a city which offered two major draws.

Attraction #1: This lovely lady:

I met Jenny last year when she joined Mary, Scott and I on our trip to the Bahamas.  It was pretty much love at first sight- Mary and I  agreed that we liked her even better than Scott.  And not only is she a total blast to party with on a tropical island, she was also able to immediately engage MIKE in conversation once we arrived at her place.  Yeah, Jenny is pretty much a rockstar.

The next morning, we showered and re-packed our stuff, ready to hit the road again- with one last scheduled stop.

Attraction #2: The California Academy of Sciences

If you haven’t noticed before, Mike’s go-to activity when we go pretty much anywhere is to head to the nearest science museum.  It’s kind of ironic, considering that he boycotted field trips as a child (he thought 6th grade science camp was dumb so he never gave his mom the permission slip to sign- what kind of kid does that?), but now that he’s almost 30, we go to a lot of museums that elementary schoolers would totally be jealous of.

So when we woke up Saturday morning, knowing full well that we had about 13 hours of driving ahead of us, we still decided that it would be a good idea to make a pit stop at the California Academy of Sciences.  Mike had been talking about this place since we first decided to make this drive, so I didn’t have the heart to argue with him.  This turned out to be a good decision, because this place was freaking amazing.

As soon as we walked in and I saw this, I knew that Mike was in love.  He immediately started taking pictures to archive under “future house/aquarium integration project.”

There is an entire aquarium INSIDE the museum.

There are few things that make my husband happier than fish tanks.  When he was 11, he found an octopus at the beach and kept it alive for 3 years in a tank he maintained by himself.  Our first apartment was 800 square feet and the only furniture we had was a mattress on the floor, a 4th-hand futon, a computer desk and a 200 gallon coral reef tank.  The first bit of renovation we did on our house in Anaheim was to knock a hole in a wall in preparation for a fish tank.  (We moved before the fish tank could actually get set up, but the wall still has a sweet hole in it.

The aquarium featured fresh water creatures too, like these adorable wax frogs!

Love.

But what was my very favorite animal?  If you know me, you can probably guess it was an albino.

Albino anythings hold a special place in my heart.

The museum had sections dedicated to all kinds of cool places.

There was even an entire rainforest!

So dope.

And just when we thought we were done, there was the roof.  Yeah, the freaking ROOF was an exhibit.

It’s called a living roof.  It regulates temperature, makes the most of solar energy, and does all kinds of other cool hippie earth-friendly stuff.

Also, it makes you feel like you’re a hobbit.  I want one.

We spent more than 4 hours at the museum.  And this wasn’t like our day-long trek through the Museum of Flight- this was super engaging and totally devoid of planes.  I was super happy that we had taken the time to explore.

However, once I realized that we weren’t going to make it back home until about 2 am, I was less happy.

See, I don’t even have to put on theatrical make-up to look like a zombie.  I just have to go on a road trip.