Things to Do in Galt

With a relentless focus on practice, San Jose Batting Cages lets players improve their hitting, pitching, and fitness to better prepare for their next outing on the diamond. Whether working through in-season regimens or off-season training, batters perfect their swing in indoor and outdoor baseball and softball cages, and hurlers enter the pitching lanes to hone their fastball against imaginary Ming Dynasty vases. Cages stay open until 8 p.m. each night, helping players blow off post-work steam or just squeeze in a few swings before hitting the hay. A staff of instructors helps athletes develop all aspects of their game through hitting and pitching lessons as well as team and group clinics.

The echoes of hooves clopping against loose dirt carry across California Riding Academy’s expansive training arena, where founder and director Jessica Harrell can often be found jumping warmblood ponies over fences or leading lessons in various riding styles. Jessica helms a staff of experienced instructors and trainers who all specialize in one area, technique, or style of horse-riding; students can team up with resident cowgirl Joanne Morrison for lessons in the Western riding style or trot alongside silver medalist Teri Dosen and her dutch warmblood during dressage lessons. Though their combined experience adds up to more than 100 years, the instructors would be nowhere without their stable of well-trained horses and ponies, who carry themselves with poise and dignity through competitions, summer camps, and stagecoach robberies.

Homestead Lanes welcomes friends and families to hurl balls down 32 glistening lanes. The alley's modern amenities include electronic scoring, gutter returns, and robotic dogs that love unconditionally. After working up a sweat slicing strikes and dancing in glittery clouds of victory, groups can meander to the snack bar. A medley of drafts and bottled brews such as Pabst Blue Ribbon, Newcastle, and Guinness stock shelves in The X Bar, a full-service sports bar that also serenades strikers with live music, Friday-night karaoke, and DJ dance parties. The bar also tends to college nostalgia with beer pong and impromptu physics quizzes.

The extensive facilities of MVP Arena, which include indoor and outdoor fields, a basketball court, and batting cages, host visitors for an array of sports leagues and classes. Adults hone their skills in training classes and then unveil new maneuvers on one another during league games for basketball, flag football, and soccer. Bat wielders practice swing timing and charging the mound without fear of retaliation in the batting cages, where regulation pitching distance and a mural of the San Francisco Bay recreate the excitement of practicing in a big-league stadium. In addition, three of the cages feature virtual pitchers that help batters time ball delivery at different speeds or a random assortment of slow, medium, and fast.

Visitors traveling through Challenger Learning Center's exhibits may feel they've fallen down Alice's rabbit hole. One moment, they're as tiny as a nanobot as they gaze at nanotechnology components developed for medicine, electronics, and space elevators. The next, they're giants who could bat the whole planet around with one well-aimed jump—that is, if the planet is the NASA projection globe across whose surface features of the sun, moon, and Earth flow in vivid color.

Other exhibits take visitors far out, with images snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope or deep inside, with the Body Plaza's skeletons, x-rays, and organ models. A wide slate of interactive programming engages youngsters' problem-solving and teamwork skills with activities such as simulated space missions, where they keep the astronauts entertained over the radios at mission control or assemble probes in the spacecraft while hurtling toward Mars.

As strobe lights slice across the stage, masked dancers descend from scaffolding and undulate to Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance.” Minutes later, a troupe of 6-year-olds takes to the same stage in traditional Indian shalwar, or loose trousers, and launch into a frenetic dance set to fast-paced bhangra music. These divergent routines—performed at Mona Khan Company’s student showcase—hint at the scope of dance styles that instructors bring to their classes. Though traditional folk and classical South Asian dance make an appearance, instructors also incorporate styles such as salsa, modern, and hip-hop.

This Bollywood dance philosophy has propelled Mona Khan Company into the national spotlight. The company’s professional dance troupe has performed with Bollywood demigod Shah Rukh Khan and dancer Shaan, and dazzled a live audience on America’s Got Talent.

Though classes at Mona Khan Company occasionally lead to professional dance careers, the studio strives to make Bollywood dance accessible to every aspiring dancer. For example, Jollywood dance classes train performers age 65 and older, and the Jeena program trains special-needs students. “It’s more than just dance,” says Ms. Shankar, the company’s dance captain. “We try to build a whole community around it."