The California Academy of Sciences took my breath away. You enter a rainforest sphere, and the path winds upwards. Along the way you see macaws, giant spiders, bats, nothing in cages. Butterflies dance at the rainforest canopy.
Then you take a glass elevator down, down, down below the water, where there is an entire freaking aquarium. It was unbelievable.
I knew it was a natural history museum, and I thought it would be a lot of taxidermy or something. Nope.
Here's a link to my story for Seattle's Child: family-friendly adventures in San Francisco.