Things to Do in Garden Acres

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.

A flock of mallards swoops over the lake, while in the hills above, california valley quail forage in the brush. Each year, gamekeepers release thousands of fowl onto Camanche Hills Hunting Preserve's 1,500 acres, all of which is meticulously designed to re-create the birds' natural habitats. Overseeing a licensing program that prevents crowding in each zone, gamekeepers open the grounds for daily hunts and can even supply hunting dogs with handlers. To help sportsmen refine their hunting skills, instructors lead safety courses and show outdoorsman the most stylish ways to wear hunter orange. The preserve also encompasses three 10-station sporting-clays course, as well as a grouse bunker, two lighted five-stand courses, and a range for trap and skeet shooting.

A clubhouse gives guests a place to relax, and a kitchen opens for breakfast and lunch—days vary depending on the season. It also houses a pro shop, complete with a gun maker experienced in the English tradition of gun fitting, as well as a sporting gun engraver. The preserve also neighbors the Camanche North Shore Recreation Area, which offers lodging, campgrounds, and further outdoor recreation such as horseback riding and fishing. Other nearby attractions range from historic gold rush sites to vineyards.

Aboard their 24-foot pontoon boats, Bay Area Party Boats LLC's captains take passengers on floating parties through the California Delta. Music blasts from the boat's 450-watt stereo as groups nibble sandwiches and reach into a built-in ice chest to retrieve cold bottles of beer. The festivities continue outside of the vessel, where passengers can swim or test how their hair functions as a sponge. Alternatively, customers can drive wave-runners or rent wakeboard boats, balancing atop boards as they speed across the water's surface.