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Thursday, March 10, 2011
Its a small world instead of Buzz first
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Friday, March 4, 2011
Botanical Building at Balboa Park, San Diego
Date of Visit: February 25, 2011
The Botanical Building is a nice garden inside an interesting lath structure building. We enjoyed walking around it and photographing the flowers. The garden is accessible with the pathways all being wide enough and the doors to the building were propped open.
Mik had one minor complaint as we approached the building from the lily pond out front. It was that there were two steps up before you got to the building and he did not think there was a ramp. Both sides of the pond have the steps and both sides have a ramp off to the side of where the steps are. It is pretty obvious once you get to the steps. I noticed the ramp a ways off, but apparently from Mik's position in his wheelchair it was not obvious until we got much closer.
Photos by Kjersti
Text by Kjersti with Mik's wheelchair accessibility input
Destination Info:
Botanical Building at Balboa Park's website
1549 El Prado
San Diego, CA 92101
The Botanical Building is a nice garden inside an interesting lath structure building. We enjoyed walking around it and photographing the flowers. The garden is accessible with the pathways all being wide enough and the doors to the building were propped open.Mik had one minor complaint as we approached the building from the lily pond out front. It was that there were two steps up before you got to the building and he did not think there was a ramp. Both sides of the pond have the steps and both sides have a ramp off to the side of where the steps are. It is pretty obvious once you get to the steps. I noticed the ramp a ways off, but apparently from Mik's position in his wheelchair it was not obvious until we got much closer.Photos by Kjersti
Text by Kjersti with Mik's wheelchair accessibility input
Destination Info:
Botanical Building at Balboa Park's website
1549 El Prado
San Diego, CA 92101
San Diego Model Railroad Museum
Date of Visit: February 25, 2011
After visiting the San Diego Automotive Museum, we walked over to the San Diego Model Railroad Museum, which is also in Balboa Park. It was kind of cool to see the model trains, but Mik did not like it at all. He had several complaints related to the accessibility.
For one, he did not like that they have railroad tie looking plaques in the middle of the walkway through the museum. It made it bumpy to roll on it and since it was narrow one wheel would be on it and the other not, yet there was not enough room to either side to totally avoid it in most parts. That was a minor complaint, though, as it still a cool feature.
The more major issue is that most of the exhibits were too high to be seen from his wheelchair. I get they cannot be too low for the people building them to work on them, but one of them were so high that even Dad could not really see it without going up the step areas (I think it was the Tehachapi Pass one).
At least the Toy Train Gallery is in a separate room that the ramp goes down into, so you started at a high enough point to view everything. However, when we went all the way down into the room it got kind of hard for Mik to see much. This room, though, also had windows overlooking it from the main pathway, so it could be enjoyed from a wheelchair pretty well.
He also did not like that we started with the path to the left of the entrance and as we followed it up we ended up at a dead end of stairs. There is another exhibit continuing on from there, but it is not open yet. Basically, you have to backtrack through that path to then go do the other area. Of course, this is the path that leads to the separate room that was the only worthwhile part of the museum to Mik.
The main area to the right of entrance/bottom of stairs from top path has a few different train models. They were not as high as the main one on the first path we went on. One of them (Pacific Desert Line?) was actually low enough he could see most of it, but by the time we got there he was frustrated (and ready for lunch!), so he did not really care.
Photos by Kjersti
Text by Kjersti with Mik's wheelchair accessibility input
Destination Info:
San Diego Model Railroad Museum
1649 El Prado
San Diego, CA 92101
After visiting the San Diego Automotive Museum, we walked over to the San Diego Model Railroad Museum, which is also in Balboa Park. It was kind of cool to see the model trains, but Mik did not like it at all. He had several complaints related to the accessibility.For one, he did not like that they have railroad tie looking plaques in the middle of the walkway through the museum. It made it bumpy to roll on it and since it was narrow one wheel would be on it and the other not, yet there was not enough room to either side to totally avoid it in most parts. That was a minor complaint, though, as it still a cool feature.The more major issue is that most of the exhibits were too high to be seen from his wheelchair. I get they cannot be too low for the people building them to work on them, but one of them were so high that even Dad could not really see it without going up the step areas (I think it was the Tehachapi Pass one).At least the Toy Train Gallery is in a separate room that the ramp goes down into, so you started at a high enough point to view everything. However, when we went all the way down into the room it got kind of hard for Mik to see much. This room, though, also had windows overlooking it from the main pathway, so it could be enjoyed from a wheelchair pretty well.He also did not like that we started with the path to the left of the entrance and as we followed it up we ended up at a dead end of stairs. There is another exhibit continuing on from there, but it is not open yet. Basically, you have to backtrack through that path to then go do the other area. Of course, this is the path that leads to the separate room that was the only worthwhile part of the museum to Mik.
The main area to the right of entrance/bottom of stairs from top path has a few different train models. They were not as high as the main one on the first path we went on. One of them (Pacific Desert Line?) was actually low enough he could see most of it, but by the time we got there he was frustrated (and ready for lunch!), so he did not really care.Photos by Kjersti
Text by Kjersti with Mik's wheelchair accessibility input
Destination Info:
San Diego Model Railroad Museum
1649 El Prado
San Diego, CA 92101
San Diego Automotive Museum
Date of Visit: February 25, 2011
I did not realize Mik really enjoyed the San Diego Automotive Museum when we went back in 2009 during our All the Ballparks road trip, but apparently he did. He has been asking to go every time we have been to San Diego the past six months. Finally, on our Rodeo Weekend trip we got around to going along with other San Diego museums, as we could go half price with the Museum Month deal.
Mik enjoyed it, but not as much as the first time. The cars were partially different than before, which was kind of a good thing because it was some new things to see. However, Mik's favorite from last time, a Lambourgini, was one of the cars no longer there. He also had fun playing with the drawing mode on his new camera.
Accessibility wise it is pretty good. Mik loved that not only did it have buttons for opening the entrance/exit, but they easily worked. The entrance and exit to the exhibit area is turnstile like, but they are accessible metal gates that can easily be pushed forward as you roll through.
It is pretty much just a giant warehouse room with cars. The cars are all spaced with plenty of room in between along with them being roped off. The motorcycle area seemed a little tight, but we really only seemed that way because someone was photographing them with a tripod when we were there.
Photos by Mik and Kjersti
Text by Kjersti with Mik's wheelchair accessibility input
Destination Info:
San Diego Automotive Museum
2080 Pan American Plaza
San Diego, CA 92101
I did not realize Mik really enjoyed the San Diego Automotive Museum when we went back in 2009 during our All the Ballparks road trip, but apparently he did. He has been asking to go every time we have been to San Diego the past six months. Finally, on our Rodeo Weekend trip we got around to going along with other San Diego museums, as we could go half price with the Museum Month deal.
Mik enjoyed it, but not as much as the first time. The cars were partially different than before, which was kind of a good thing because it was some new things to see. However, Mik's favorite from last time, a Lambourgini, was one of the cars no longer there. He also had fun playing with the drawing mode on his new camera.Accessibility wise it is pretty good. Mik loved that not only did it have buttons for opening the entrance/exit, but they easily worked. The entrance and exit to the exhibit area is turnstile like, but they are accessible metal gates that can easily be pushed forward as you roll through.It is pretty much just a giant warehouse room with cars. The cars are all spaced with plenty of room in between along with them being roped off. The motorcycle area seemed a little tight, but we really only seemed that way because someone was photographing them with a tripod when we were there.Photos by Mik and Kjersti
Text by Kjersti with Mik's wheelchair accessibility input
Destination Info:
San Diego Automotive Museum
2080 Pan American Plaza
San Diego, CA 92101
Friday, February 25, 2011
Legoland California
Normally Legoland California is not worth visiting for us, mostly because there are no wheelchair accessible rides, but also since it really is mostly for the younger kids. However, we still like seeing the Miniland and other stuff made out of LEGOs and Mik loves browsing the shops. Plus, we got a good deal on tickets from Groupon back in November 2010 and also got a ticket to come back before end of March 2011.This time we mainly went to use the free ticket before it expired and Mik wanted to finally get the castle he had saved his allowance for. Mik also wanted to check out the new Ninjago stuff, although of course he could have done that elsewhere, he just likes the Big Shop being all LEGO stuff together. Sadly, the LEGO Castle was part of the stuff no longer available along with most of the Harry Potter sets. Worse was that he found the Ninja stuff he had been so excited about coming out this year to be rather boring and mostly not Ninja seeming.
Still had fun checking out other stuff at Legoland and playing with the drawing mode on his new camera. He also enjoyed playing some of the LEGO video games in the Xbox Family Game Space. The new Hero Factory was not that interesting, but only because we do not like Bionicle style LEGOs. It was nice that the LEGO Factory Tour had more of the machines actually working, although not entirely as seems usual.
Photos by Mik and Kjersti
Text by Kjersti
Destination Info:
Legoland California
One Legoland Dr
Carlsbad, CA 92008
Legoland California: Hero Factory
The Hero Factory is a new area you can actually build with some LEGO stuff. Mik thought it was cool the seats all swung out so you could move them out of the way for him to wheel up to the table. However, the Hero Factory line is just the new Bionicles and he finds them frustrating and not as fun as actual LEGOs. I for one was glad when he grew out of liking Bionicles because I share the dislike of how hard it can be to snap the pieces together, him having them fall apart easily when playing with them, and me having to put them back together again.Photo by Kjersti
Text by Kjersti with Mik's wheelchair accessibility input
Destination Info:
Legoland California
One Legoland Dr
Carlsbad, CA 92008
Legoland California: LEGO Factory Tour
The LEGO Factory tour part of Legoland is kind of cool because you can see how the LEGOs are made, although most of the machines were not working, which seems pretty typical. Mik liked pushing the button to try to get the face on the LEGO head stamped right. It was a little awkward to roll up to it, but doable. Of course, most of the machines were either off or not working properly, so just more frustrating than normal.
Photo and Text by Kjersti with Mik's wheelchair accessibility input
Destination Info:
Legoland California
One Legoland Dr
Carlsbad, CA 92008
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