San Francisco

May 18, 2014

For the second day of my parent's visit, we spent the day in and around San Francisco.

Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA

Mute Swan

We started our day in Oakland at Lake Merritt looking for Hank the Pelican.  No luck.  Then, Mom wanted to see the Greek Orthodox church on Lincoln.  I had no idea where Lincoln was, but I knew there was a Greek Orthodox church right next to the Mormon Temple in the hills, so we drove there.  Sure enough, that was the one.  She didn't want to go in or anything, so we just did a drive by and headed over to the city.

Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA

Our first stop in San Francisco was the Palace of Fine Arts.  I like taking visitors here because not only is it beautiful it's also completely and utterly worthless.  One of San Francisco's most endearing traits to me is its ability and willingness to build things for no other reason than "Hey, man, it would be cool."  The Palace of Fine Arts is perhaps its finest example.

The original building was left over from the 1915 World Expo.  The people of that era liked this particular part of the expo so much that when it came time to tear it down along with all the other buildings of the expo they couldn't bring themselves to do it, so they kept it around.  That original building lasted into the sixties, but it wasn't built to last nearly that long.  It fell into disrepair, but the people of that era were no more ready to give up the building than the people from the 1910s, so they put a bunch of money together and built the cement replica that stands today.

Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA

We went to a French cafe in the Marina for lunch.  Then we headed over to Marin to take in the views from the Headlands.  It was windy up there, but the skies were clear so we could see for miles.

Marin Headlands, CA

Pocket Gopher

My parents wanted to walk across the bridge but we missed the exits and didn't feel like back-tracking, so we went to Golden Gate Park instead.  My mom and I walked from the bison paddock to the beach while Dad doubled back to pick us up.  We saw a gopher on the walk.  Not a gopher hole.  A gopher.  I don't think I've ever actually seen one in a natural setting before.

Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA

The windmills in the park are also good examples of San Francisco's useless beauty.  They were originally functional, supplying the power needed to pump water in the park.  They were replaced by electric pumps decades ago.  Both windmills were recently rebuilt, again because some people got it into their heads that it would be a cool thing to do.

Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA