We're having a heat wave. A tropical heat wave.

On my last visit to San Francisco I made an impromptu visit to the California Academy of Science based on the recommendation of a cab driver. It was amazing but we didn’t have nearly enough time to do everything we wanted. So this trip we returned. We still didn’t get to see everything. But this trip was even more fun than the first.

The highlight was a trip through the tropical rain forest. This amazing section of the Academy is a giant glass sphere filled with fauna and flora. A ramp circles up around the sphere with informative exhibits throughout. At the end, you take an elevator down to the underground level where you can walk under the “river” that is in the sphere.

The stars of the show are the butterflies—hundreds of them in bright colors flittering and fluttering about the rain forest. They frequently land on visitors, to the point that you’re asked to do a butterfly check before you leave.

But there are other characters that are just as dazzling as the butterflies. Tropical birds zoom throughout the rain forest. And several displays feature tropical frogs—and I love tropical frogs. They’re like little jewels. In fact, they reminded me of the jeweled insects and reptiles created by Faberge and Tiffany that we’d just seen the day before.