Spring has Sprung

Well, it’s time for Spring Break. We were going to go to Utah, but gas prices and Shelley’s work schedule put the Kybosh on that.  We instead stayed local for our “Staycation” as they say.

On the first Saturday, we headed down to the bay and went to the Oakland Zoo, and then headed over the bridge to go to Fort Point. It was a beautiful day at the zoo, and we were glad to have Grandpa come with us too!

Monkey’s in Action

We had never been to Fort Point before and it was free National Parks Day, so we went. We were surprised how big it was. It sits right under the San Fran side of the Golden Gate Bridge. I mean RIGHT UNDER it!  All the steel girders you see in these photos are the bottom of the first span on the bridge.

A little history: Fort Point was built  just before the Civil War to protect  San Fran from hostile warships. There are four levels to the fort and the bottom level was built as level to the water as possible, so cannon balls would ricochet across the water to hit enemy ships at the water line, causing them to sink. The Fort has 7-10 foot thick walls, and is the only fort like this on the west coast.  Some of the cannons could shoot up to two miles. They also had a big furnace that would get the cannon balls red hot and then shoot those into ships, causing the ships to catch on fire.

Right as we got close to the ocean, it got foggy, which is typical of San Fran weather.  When we first got to the Fort, we couldn’t even seen the bridge that was over the top of us!  By the time we left, the fog was lifting. It was windy and a little cool though!

Ooops!  Not quite ready for the photo to be taken just yet:

Here is a video of the view, you can hear all the wind noise, so turn your speakers down:

Fort Point

Another day, we headed to our favorite stomping ground, yep, you guessed it, Six Flags. It was bring a friend free day, and Hannah brought her cuz, Allaina, and Jacob brought a friend, Kale. Weather was perfect, and crowds were light. No long lines at all!

The kids love the Hammerhead ride!

In these first two, Jake and Kale are in the front. Jacob is in the outside seat.

Here is Meg and Marissa.

Here is Hammerhead in action:

Hammerhead in action

Medusa never gets old. So fast, and so so smooth!  You could shave while riding it, it’s so smooth.

Another day, we headed out for a nature hike where we had never been. We headed south of Sac about 20 miles to Rancho Seco. Rancho Seco used to be an operting nuclear plant that operated from the mid-70’s until 1989 when it was closed by a public vote to shut it down.  Now it’s a recreational lake, picnic, park, and has a 7 mile nature hike through fields, wildflowers and vernal pools and all surrounded by huge vineyards.

 

It was a very calming, peaceful, and pretty area!

Field View

We found a small pond and everyone practiced skipping rocks.

When we went to bed that night, after being at Rancho Seco, we noticed our fingernails were glowing. And when we opened our mouths, that little thingy in the back of your mouth that hangs down and wobbles when you talk, was glowing too. 

Weird.

Anyhow, back to the rest of Spring Break.

We went to a science museum in Lodi that we had never been to before, and were the only ones there. We had the place to ourselves.  It was a pretty decent museum with fun things to do.

Sunday was Easter and we had a very yummy dinner with family! Everyone was there!  Us, Lynnette, Cherie, Adam and families, and Gma and Gpa and Grandma Petersen too!

Then on Monday after Easter, Jake and Hannah didn’t have school, so we stretched Spring Break one more day.  We headed back down to Six Flags, but this time it was for something special.

You heard of Bert the Conqueror?  He has a show on the Travel Channel each week where he goes to amusement parks and rides extreme rides. He is very funny to watch too.  It’s a pretty good show. Anyhow, he was filming a show at our Six Flags, and they needed ‘extra’s’ for one of the segments, so they had a contest to find people to come and ride Hammerhead with him and to be on  the show.  Well, I entered it, and won so Jake, Hannah and I left at 5:30 to be there at 7am to film. They had to film before the park opened.  It was a lot of waiting around. Bert actually rode the ride twice, but all the extra’s rode it 7 times so they could get various shots.

In between shoots, Bert LOVED the claw game. He played and played and played. He joked around with the kids and was a really nice guy.

Here he is talking with the producer about one of the shots,

and here they are shooting him before the ride started. 

They mounted a camera to one of the seats which was on him during the ride.  Here he is upside down, and the camera is on the empty seat.

The episode they filmed there will be on tv on Father’s Day! Don’t miss it!

Here is a group photo of all of us.

It was pretty cool to see how they did it all.

We finished off our Staycation Spring Break in style, by playing some Laser Tag and going to Leatherby’s.

The game has started!  I’d better quit taking pics and start shooting my gun!

We got our famous Daddy Dave’s Banana Split at Leatherby’s. But we change it up a bit.  We get it this way:

No banana, two scoops vanilla, one scoop swiss milk chocolate, all caramel topping, chocolate whipped cream, nuts on the side, extra side of hot fudge = YUM

We do wish we could have gone to Utah to see family, but we had a great time staying home too!