grandkids

Squirmy, slithering, reptilian creatures delight kids at this store ( it only sounds like a museum) a block from Berkeley’s buzzing 4th Street. All the exotic cobras, boas, pythons, turtles, frogs, and lizards are for sale if you’re so inclined. Take special note of the day’s menu of feed for purchase including live worms, crickets, rats […]

Bundle up the grandkids and take them on one of the geezer’s holiday favorite jaunts – the glittering hourlong evening train ride in Niles Canyon. Every year the historic trains (part of the first Transcontinental Railway built in the 1860’s) are festooned with hundreds of colored lights – it’s more magical than anything concocted by […]

No matter how much the kids beg, no grandparent should ever have to set foot in Chuck E. Cheese. For something as wacky but more edible try any of the Buca di Beppo’s in the Bay Area. This is hearty, red sauce Italian but pleasantly weird. Ask for the Pope’s Table with its centerpiece of […]

In the interests of promoting itself, the deYoung Museum holds parties every Friday night until 8:45. Bring the grandkids if you can pry them loose from their hand-held devices. The wonderfully weird architecture may strike them as “cool” which it definitely is. The deYoung’s remarkable cafeteria is open ( a cafeteria any junior high could […]

n the foothills east of Fremont, the small town of Niles is a twee collection of an antique and tea shops (plus an incongruous biker bar). More importantly it is the starting point for the Niles Canyon Heritage Railway, the last link of the first Transcontinental Railway built in the 1860’s. Today you’ll ride 22 […]

Squirmy, slithering, reptilian creatures delight kids at this store ( it only sounds like a museum) a block from Berkeley’s buzzing 4th Street. All the exotic cobras, boas, pythons, turtles, frogs, and lizards are for sale if you’re so inclined. Take special note of the day’s menu of feed for purchase including live worms, crickets, rats […]

Explaining Alice in Wonderland’s appetite for mushrooms to your grandkids is easy if you take them to Los Altos’ Hidden Villa. Their wondrous Mushroom Hike is: Sunday Nov. 8 & Saturday Nov. 21 10am – 1pm It’ s like an Easter egg hunt only instead of eggs it’s fungi. Designed for kids 10 and older […]

Show your grandkids that animation didn’t start with “Shrek”. Though this new museum has more about Walt’s family than you need to know, the design is ingenious, the cartooning is delightful and it has hands-on features to fascinate web-friendly kids. The primitive “Waldo the Rabbit” and the sophisticated “Snow White” are particular highlights. There is also […]