Bay Area Adventures: The Walt Disney Family Museum

Back in 2009, I faced a (mercifully) brief stint of unemployment.  2009 was a tough year to be unemployed, and I was determined not to let it sink my spirits.  At that time, I had a friend who worked at Disneyland and could get up to 3 people into the park for free everyday.  So after I had done my depressing rounds of job-applying every morning, I would drive down to Long Beach, pick up my best friend Hillary, and drive over to Anaheim to go to Disneyland (she was a bartender and worked nights). In the 8 weeks or so that I was income-less, I enjoyed the luxury of going to Disneyland about 15 times.  It got to the point where I could have walked around the entire park with my eyes closed, I rode every ride (seemingly) a hundred times, and made some really awesome memories with my best friends.  I can look back on that bleak period of my life with fondness (mostly because my unemployment ended with an awesome job at Paramount Pictures!) but also because it was filled with Disney-happiness, and not depressing days of joblessness.

My Disney love affair certainly didn't begin at the age of 22, but it definitely taught me, through adults eyes, how Disney can bring joy to everyone.  So when I moved up to the Bay Area, I was intrigued to visit the Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio - especially because the museum wasn't just a collection of Disney works, but was actually dedicated to telling Walt Disney's own story, from his humble beginnings all the way through to how his legacy changed- and continues to affect - American pop and entertainment culture.

My friend Jess and I visited the museum on a typically misty day last fall. Admission was a bit pricey at $20 each, but we quickly learned that the content and quality in the museum were well worth the price tag.  The entrance lobby was framed on all walls with cabinets filled with the various prestigious awards Disney has won - dozens of Academy Awards, Emmys, Golden Globes, etc - an impressive sight (Google tells me the total of awards displayed is 248, pretty amazing).  The first exhibit after leaving the lobby was about Walt's grandparents and parents, and their lives in Ireland, then Canada, before bringing their children into the United States.  The next hall showed artifacts from Walt's childhood growing up in Missouri, including his brief (underage) stint in the Army during World War I.

As Walt came into adulthood, so did his artistic visions, and soon we were walking through halls full of early sketches of Mickey Mouse, followed by walls full of iPads playing different Mickey Mouse cartoons.  Soon we were seeing exhibits on the early Disney feature films, complete with a nice little viewing area to watch Fantasia (we took a few minutes break, just enough time to watch the classic "Sorcerer's Apprentice" scene).  All of the exhibits were multi-media - large TV screens, iPads, interactive displays, framed sketches and hand-written memos and other correspondence, collections of artifacts - and in every direction there was something interesting to see.

We walked through different exhibits for each of the feature films, then turned a corner and walked down a long spiraling ramp, and at the bottom of the ramp was a super awesome to-scale diorama of Disneyland.  Jess and I totally geeked out over the model, and it brought back all those memories of my many trips to Disneyland as a kid and as an adult.

After the Disneyland diorama, there were a few more exhibits, mostly focusing on his plans for Walt Disney World.  And lastly, we walked through a very somber but powerful display -  a collection of stories including a Peanut's comic strip, comments from the President, and other pop culture figures in response to Disney's death in 1966.

After we exited the last exhibit, we headed up to the gift shop to look around, where we learned that every month the museum features a different "matinee" of a classic Disney film, which was included in our admission.  That day's show was "Bambi," which I was actually quite interested in seeing since I hadn't seen it in probably over twenty years.    For a film that has probably 10 lines of dialogue in the whole feature, the artistry and emotion were incredibly powerful! It's definitely a classic for a reason (ignoring the fact that hearing the mother behind us explain to her young son what "happened" to Bambi's mom was one of the sadder things I had experienced in a long time!)

In the end, I had a blast at the museum.  I have always loved Disney as an artist and a cultural icon, and this museum totally did him justice, while only slightly pandering to the Disney-philes.  I would highly recommend a trip!

Museum from the front

A wall of iPads showcasing different Mickey Mouse cartoons

A huge collection of Mickey memorabilia

A range of Pantone paint colors used in Sleeping Beauty

Stills from Song of the South (the banned, racist one!)

A still from Lady and the Tramp

Early Cinderella character sketches

Disneyland diorama from above

Disneyland diorama

Bay Area Adventures: Muir Woods State Park

Back in March when I learned my international friend Bernadette was coming to visit, I was determined to show her something she'd never seen before.  Yes, we took her to the Golden Gate Bridge, but we had three more days and I wanted to do something new for both of us.  I decided to take her to Muir Woods State Park, located over the GGB in Marin County, north of San Francisco.  Besides being a beautiful nature area full of hiking trails and even beaches, Muir Woods is also home to the southernmost forest of Redwood trees in the US.  And since Redwood trees only grow on the coast of California, this is the southernmost Redwood forest in the world.

As someone who was born and raised in Germany and had just spent the last few years of her life in New Zealand, I was sure Bernadette had never seen a Redwood before, and was excited to show her these incredibly amazing trees. Now, I'm not really a "nature freak" per se, but something about the Redwoods just totally fascinates me.  As my Grannie would say, some Redwoods are "older than Christ," and you have to respect and admire anything that can literally live over 2,000 years.  Not to mention grow as tall as 30 stories high while also smelling amazing.

In high school a friend of mine sent me a postcard from the actual Redwood National Forest (located about 8 hours north of SF).  The postcard itself was made out of a very very thin piece of Redwood bark, and to this day, more than 10 years later, it still smells faintly like Redwoods. I was not disappointed to be greeted by that exact smell when we got out of the car and entered Muir Woods.   

We walked through the grove of trees on a raised deck-like path.   Bernadette and I both took a million pictures of the gargantuan trees, and took several deep deep breaths of the deliciously fresh air.  After we turned back, we happened upon a group of tourists and a guide, who was leading a "tree talk." We listened for a few minutes and my nerdy self was loving it.  We learned some really awesome trivia, most notably 1) Redwood bark can grow up to 2 feet thick, thus being a natural defense against predators and 2) The bark secretes tannin, which is a natural bug repellant.  So while many trees will secrete sap, and thus attract insects like termites and even birds, all those little pests leave Redwoods alone.

After we got back to the car, we drove down to Sausalito and spent the afternoon walking on the boardwalk, and treated ourselves to some fresh seafood.  It was a lovely day, and San Francisco did not disappoint with another sunny day for my visitor!

We entered through this gate, but it turns out we should have gone through the gift shop to pay an entrance fee.  Whoops.

Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world, and even these pale in comparison to some of the bigger ones found at Redwood National Park

Me and Bernadette on one of the many bridges along the path

My pup Sunny exploring Sausalito

Sausalito beach sculptures with the San Franciso skyline in the background

Bay Area Adventures: Baker Beach

When my favorite international friend Bernadette informed me that she was moving from New Zealand to Germany, I immediately realized that this meant one thing: A California stop-over!  So I convinced her to book her flights and come visit me for four days at the end of March. I was just as excited to see her, as I was to use her as an excuse to get a jump-start on my Bay Area Adventures list!

When she had lived in LA previously, Bernadette had taken a whirl-wind weekend trip up to San Francisco and did most of the touristy things - Alcatraz, Lombard Street, Ghiradelli Square, etc.  So when planning our itinerary, I asked her what she hadn't done and would like to do.  She was so polite and European about it, when she said "Well, we did all these things but it was so foggy, we didn't even get to see the Golden Gate Bridge.  So... I guess, if we could maybe see that, that would be really cool."

Luckily for her, I am still obsessed with the GGB myself and took this as the prefect opportunity to finally take some of my own touristy bridge pictures. I knew of a great place with an amazing bridge view, and with a bit of research (asking one friend who lives in the city) I learned that the place I wanted to go was called Baker Beach.  So we made Baker Beach our #1 SF stop for Bernadette's visit.

The few times I have been in San Francisco have been pretty difficult (to say the least) driving/parking experiences, and since this was literally the ONLY thing Bernadette requested, I was scared that we would make it all the way to Baker Beach only to find no parking within a 2-mile radius.  So we left extra early and took the scenic route up to San Francisco.  We got to Baker beach around 11:00 AM (had to give the fog some time to burn off) and of course, there were dozens of parking spots in the closest lot. We parked and walked along the eucalyptus-lined path, turned a corner, and saw THIS:

Taa-daaaaa!

Not even a wisp of fog!  Bernadette was beside herself, and I tried to play it cool, but I was loving it too.  Even Ronny knew how lucky we were to be seeing the bridge in all its glory on such a beautiful day, especially in March. What an amazing view of a world landmark!  I had never felt more excited to live in the bay area than I did in that moment.

So we took our shoes off and started walking along the beach, taking pictures of the majestic bridge as we walked.  And then we started looking around.  Despite the stunning view in front of us, we were surrounded by another view entirely: a decently-sized crowd of naked men.  Because, naturally, the beach with the most amazing view of the Golden Gate Bridge in all of San Francisco WOULD be a nude beach. 

With naked men to our right, large families (with children!!) taking family photos to our left, and the Golden Gate Bridge in front of us, I realized then that I - and my foreign friend - were having a true San Francisco experience.  But of course, she is European and it wasn't even that big of a deal to her.

Overall, I was blown away by the view at Baker Beach.  I've seen hundreds of pictures that friends have posted of them standing in this exact spot, but seeing it in person was really special.  It was easily worth the drive, and I look forward to showing more touristy friends the beach - except this time I will warn them about all the nude men!

Please notice the naked men sunbathing

The panoramic postcard shot

Me and Bernadette in front of the GGB!

He allowed me to take one touristy picture, good thing it was the perfect one!