Recommendations for San Jose, CA?

Hello friends!

We’ll be in San Jose for a couple weeks and I’m wondering if you’ve got any recommendations for cheap and cheerful family friendly spots? We’re into nature, science, exploration and imagination but mostly we’re just curious about the world and people! So if it’s interesting to you, it’ll probably be interesting to us! lol

So far, what we definitely have on our list is:

The Children’s Discovery Museum

The Tech Museum of Innovation

Happy Hollow Park & Zoo

Winchester Mystery House

If you’ve been to any of the above, please let me know what you thought and if you’d recommend a visit! I’ve also been hearing about an Egyptian museum and an historic orchard that I’m curious about.

Have you been to San Jose? Or are you planning a trip here? What comes to mind when you think of this city? Let us know! We’d love to check it out and let you know what we find!

My Ancestry DNA results…

My Ancestry DNA results came in.
Just as I suspected, my great great grandfather
was a monarch butterfly.
Much of who I am is still wriggling under a stone.
I am part larva, but part hummingbird too.
There is dinosaur tar in my bone marrow.
My golden hair sprang out of a meadow in Palestine.
Genghis Khan is my fourth cousin,
but I didn’t get his dimples.
My loins are loaded with banyan seeds from Sri Lanka,
but I descended from Ravanna, not Ram.
My uncle is a mastodon.
There are traces of white people in my saliva.
3.7 billion years ago I swirled in golden dust,
dreaming of a planet overgrown with lingams and yonis.
More recently, say 60,000 B.C.
I walked on hairy paws across a land bridge
joining Sweden to Botswana.
I am the bastard of the sun and moon.
I can no longer hide my heritage of raindrops and cougar scat.
I am made of your grandmother’s tears.
You conquered rival tribesmen of your own color,
chained them together, marched them naked to the coast,
and sold them to colonials from Savannah.
I was that brother you sold, I was the slave trader,
I was the chain.
Admit it, you have wings, vast and golden,
like mine, like mine.
You have sweat, black and salty,
like mine, like mine.
You have secrets silently singing in your blood,
like mine, like mine.
Don’t pretend that earth is not one family.
Don’t pretend we never hung from the same branch.
Don’t pretend we don’t ripen on each other’s breath.
Don’t pretend we didn’t come here to forgive.

~ Fred LaMotte ~

at Pyramid Lake

This was a few years back now. We were driving down to Long Beach and stopped at Pyramid Lake for a bit. As usual, I took photos, and this one’s a favourite.

Pyramid Lake, 2012

 

bougainvillea in black and white

A gorgeous bird

I had no idea emus were so gorgeous in person. They’re just so interesting looking. And they sound pretty fierce. This one emu kept fluffing out it’s neck feathers and then glaring at us while making screeching, cackling sounds in its throat. It was eerie and the only reason I stuck around was because there was a fence between us, you know? Probably a false sense of security for all I know about these birds, but whatevs.

I made sure to get every angle for you! Enjoy! 😀

 

 

beauty surrounds us

a few random expressions of the beauty that is life…