Gone To NightLife At The California Academy of Sciences

"Science does not know its debt to imagination."
  --Ralph Waldo Emerson

The California Academy of Sciences, established in 1853 and located in Golden Gate Park, is a place I had always loved going as a kid.  It had an aquarium, a planetarium, and a bunch of other cool exhibits.  In 2008 they remodeled the place, but the crowds were so big to get in after the reopening that J and I decided to wait to check it out again.

Also, since February 2009, they started opening late on Thursday nights for adults 21 and older.  They call this the NightLife event, it runs from 6pm-10pm, it’s usually themed and they have music playing throughout the night.  This week the theme was “Slither, Hop & Crawl”:

In honor of the Academy’s brand new exhibit, Snakes & Lizards: The Summer of Slither, Nightlife will be slithering, hopping and crawling with scaled critters from around the world.

I bought the tickets online ($12).  After work today, J and I headed over to Golden Gate Park, found a parking space and walked over to the entrance.


We checked out the snake and lizard exhibit first where they had a group telling us about flying snakes and lizards.  They let you make a glider and fly it to a distant table.


I made an orange and black flying snake, and they added it to their collection.


Claude, the albino alligator, is one of the Academy’s star attractions.


This diamondback rattlesnake is just relaxing.


I thought the aquarium was still very impressive.  There are a ton of great fish to see and a bunch of eels as well.




This waxy tree frog looked so fake.


They had a tank with four tiger fish in it.  They are such cool looking fish!


They had a few employees showing people the sea life in the tide pools.


This display had the stomach contents of a tiger shark.


This dinosaur fossil is at the front door.  He looked pretty awesome at night.


It was dark by the time we left and this was what the front of the building looked like at the end of the evening.


This was fun, and I want to go back again.  Seeing the exhibits at night and being able to get drinks made it a great experience.  It’s totally worth the $12 purchase price, and J and I see it as a great place to take a date.

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