Posts Tagged ‘presidio’

When owls find a mouse, they swallow it whole, and then cough up the bones in a brown walnut-sized pellet called a bolus. While animal puke wouldn’t generally be the type of thing parents would want to hunt for, dissecting a bolus is a fascinating activity. With steady hands, a bit of anatomical knowledge, and a lot of patience, one can often prise an entire mouse skeleton from the bolus, and stretch it out to take a look at it. Besides being creepily fascinating, this is a great science activity with illustrative lessons about predators, prey, and the digestive process.

You can order boluses (boli?) on the Internet, but they’re also out there in the woods just waiting to be picked up, anywhere where owls roost at night. One particularly lucky San Francisco spot is just inside the Presidio, at the Presidio Gate at Presidio Boulevard and Pacific Street. Owls like to hang out in the nearby pine trees at night, gulping down mice (and the occasional gopher) and spitting them out like so many sunflower seed shells. A nature walk in the early morning can yield spit-up fruit. Look for dark brown balls on the ground underneath the trees. Happy dissecting!

It’s not a street fair without a bounce house for kids to exhaust themselves in, and many’s the parent who is happy to walk up and see one, knowing that Junior’s sure to take a nap today. But outside of said street fairs, and the most luxurious kinds of birthday parties, bounce houses are a rare sighting. They’re kind of a pain to keep inflated, and supervised, after all. But the Presidio YMCA seems to manage it, three mornings a week.

At the Y’s Jungle Gym program, kids age 1-5 are set free to tumble across the facility’s big, padded mats, crawl through tunnels, or jump wildly in the Moon Bounce that’s almost always set up. There are balance beams for small daredevils, bikes and space to ride them in, and arts and crafts activities for the kids who get tired. Parents supervise and participate, and there are staff members about to provide advice on equipment and lead activities.

The Jungle Gym is a great way for pre-preschoolers to get their ya ya’s out, particularly on rainy days, and all the equipment might inspire you to play, too. No grownups in the bounce house, though.

Jungle Gym takes place each Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, 10:30am-noon at the Letterman Gym at the Presidio YMCA, 1152 Gorgas Avenue (at Marina Boulevard), in the Presidio, San Francisco. Call 415-447-9680 or visit ymcasf.org.

Most of San Francisco’s branch libraries are kind of small, so the children’s section amounts to a couple of tables with chairs, a few shelves of books, and maybe if you’re lucky a couple of battered stuffed animals. But kids are granted an entire spacious room of their own at the Presidio Branch Library.

The room is behind the librarian’s desk and entirely walled off, giving parents a delightful amount of freedom therein. You needn’t constantly shush your kids for fear they’re bugging the adult library patrons–they’re out in the other room! They can’t hear you! The walls also keep wandering kids in, and potentially creepy adults out.

It’s not quite as secure as as the Main Library’s Fisher Center downtown, which has its own complicated-to-get-to floor. But for a branch library with relatively decent parking and friendly neighborhood cafes (instead of a concrete parking garage and crowds of homeless people), it’s about as good as you can get.

The Presidio Branch Library is located at 3150 Sacramento Street (at Baker Street), San Francisco. Call 415-355-2880 or visit sfpl.org.

San Francisco is not a town known for its fabulous beaches. Yeah, sure, there’s Ocean Beach and Baker Beach, but if the sleeper waves don’t kill you, the freezing cold water will.

All that changed for parents with little kids when Crissy Field was renovated, and sand strewn at the northernmost shoreline of the Presidio. Suddenly what was a barren wasteland became a tiny (less than a mile long), jewel-like beach, with mild, gentle waves thanks to its sheltered Bay location. The area’s so small and compact that parents can just throw down a blanket and let the kids wander; on any sunny day the beach is crammed with dogs, moms, and preschoolers, all wading in the water, digging in the sand, and taking in the fantastic view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Parking at the Marshall lot (Marshall Street at Mason Street) is free and just steps from the beach; restrooms and the Warming Hut are conveniently located nearby if you should need to visit the facilities or grab a snack. Best of all, your exhausted children will probably fall happily asleep in the car on the way home. And isn’t that what outings are all about?