Saturday 8/26/17
I only had one
full day in San Francisco. Looking back
it was definitely a full one. It began
with a breakfast of blueberry pancakes.
My sister makes them with rice flour.
It’s a different flavor than I’m used to and really good. Thanks Sis!.
From there we took
a short drive out to the town of Pacifica and a walk down the Mori Point Trail to the beach. To the south the trail heads up into the
neighboring hillside to the point. To the north it’s
a wide paved path alongside the beach.
We chose the beach.
It was another foggy morning on the beach, but not nearly to the level of the previous few days. The path was full
of walkers, runners, bikers and one very compliant crow.
We decided to walk
down to the fishing pier and back. The
pier itself was pretty packed with people casting and waiting. Being the area it is, there were
conversations going on in quite a few languages as we passed on by. And in a reflection of modern times, we eve passed a few people in chairs, their lines cast and staring into their phones.
A little backstory
to the rest of the day. I listen to a
lot of NPR on the road. One of the hot
topics was the upcoming “freedom rally” to be held in Berkeley by a group who
call themselves Patriot Prayer. They
claim to be fighting to end corruption in government and support free
speech. The Southern Poverty Law Center
describes them a little differently.
Instead of being all about free speech and freedom, they’re more about
confrontation and provoking a response from the political left. According to some of the NPR analyists,
they also attract supporting protesters from the ranks of the white
supremacists. After Charlottesville, there was definitely some concern.
Numerous groups
planned counter protests and rallies, both in the Berkeley park with the Patriot Prayer
folks and others around the greater San Francisco area. Patriot Prayer canceled their
original rally citing “safety concerns.”
They moved their rally to another park which the city promptly closed for
the day. They then promised pop up
protests in and around the city. These never materialized.
Shortly after I
arrived at my sister’s, she received an email from Rabbi Mark. He was attending a peace rally on the beach
and invited her along. The organizers
were planning to make a giant heart on the beach and people were suggested to
wear red or pink.
So, after getting
back from Pacifica, we went off to join the rally. We were invited to lunch at Rabbi Mark’s
synagogue, an easy twenty block walk. This
was my first time in a synagogue and yeah, I felt a little like a fish out of
water. But the congregation were welcoming
and just some really great people.
After lunch we
were met by another rabbi and minister. We all walked the two miles to
the rally together. We did try and come
up with a good joke to… Two rabbis, a swami and a minister walk into a peace
protest and… But, nothing seemed to work. It was a fun. lively chat the whole way.
The organizers had
yellow tape laid out on the sand in the heart shape and were trying to spread
the rest of us out to fill the inside a little more evenly. The way it was originally billed was for a
helicopter to fly over and take pictures.
Well, there was no helicopter.
There were the however a few drones.
But then again in this day and age I would have been surprised if there
hadn’t been any.
The crowd was in
good spirits and most of the signs and banners were peaceful in origin with a
few “Resist” ones pointed at President Trump and a few others calling for the
rest of us to stand up to racism.
There was also this guy...
At the center of the heart, a giants American flag.
While the drones
were flying overhead we were led in singalongs to “America the Beautiful,”
“This is Your Land” and finally “Imagine.” It was funny watching people whip out their phones to
find the lyrics and then follow along.
You can see the drone video here.
Afterwards the crowd just seemed to
disburse. Since we were right across
from it, we decide to go off and spend the rest of the afternoon exploring Golden
Gate Park. This was my third time in the
city and the first time in the park.
There were plenty
of people out and about on foot and on bicycles.
We passed a few parties and at least one wedding. It was a perfect day for it. The sun had finally burned through the worst
of the fog and the steady breeze kept everyone cool.
One thing you really can't miss in the park are a pair of large dutch windmills. The first was built in 1903 for the purpose of pumping ground water for the park's use. The second was completed five years later. After ten years of use, electric pumps made them unnecessary and they fell into disrepair. The north windmill was restored in 1987 and the southern mill restored in 2012.
One thing you
won’t find in your average big city park is a bison preserve. Yes, there is a herd of bison grazing in the
park. Granted, they’re behind a double
fence.
When the park was being designed, the idea was to honor the spirit of the wild west. This meant you needed some bison. So, in 1891 the first was brought to the park. More were brought in a few years later. The current herd is six, all female. The park wants bison, just not overly aggressive bulls. Understandable since they're prone to anger and can weight up to 2,000 pounds.
Seen on the walk through the park...
In the middle of the parks sits a Japanese Tea Garden, the oldest in the United States. It was originally a part of a Japanese Village exhibit for the 1894 Worlds Fair. Japanese immigrant Makoto Hagiwara oversaw the construction and the exhibit. He remained its caretaker and oversaw its exhibit in the 1915 in the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition. After the exhibition, Hagiwara bought the garden. His daughter kept the garden after his death. Unfortunately, the anti-Japanese hysteria of WWII found it confiscated and the family moved to an internment camp. The garden was renamed the Oriental Tea Garden and some of the Japanese stylings updated to reflect a more Chinese atmosphere. The garden was eventually returned to the Hagiwara family who restored it to what it is today.
And yes, there is an actual tea house within the garden. And yes we did stop for some tea.
On the far end
of the park is a place my sister really wanted to visit. It’s alongside the Flower Conservatory. It’s a decent sized fenced area fully of
dalias, thus the name Dahlia Park. We
met a fellow photographer who knew a lot about them and said we hit them just
about peak time. And the low light of
the end of the day really made the colors shine.
Feeling pretty
amazed by the dahlia garden, we decided to call it a day. We worked our way back out the southern end
of the park and just started walking. We
stopped at various restaurants, reading their menus in the window and moving
on. Eventually we found ourselves in a
small pizza place called Biania's where Erica took good care of us. It was just good to get off our feet and chat for a while.
After a really
nice dinner and break from walking, we decided to take the trolley and bus back
home. We were pretty much done for
anyway. The highlight of trip home took
place at our transfer bus stop. A random woman walked up, stuck her hand out like she was looking for a fist bump
and asked if we were there for the anti-supremecists rally. I said slyly, “maybe.” When her face suddenly became a little
confused, I told her we had been at the heart shaped rally on the beach. At which point she insisted on giving me a
big, lingering hug. You really don’t
know who you’ll meet at a random bus stop.
Back home I said
my good-byes to my Sis and called it a night.
My alarm was set for 2:30A so I could get to the airport, drop off the
rental car and my checked bag before the first flight out.
I pulled into Hertz line amongst all these clean cars. My Altima had dust from the Crater Lake road
construction, volcanic ash from Crescent City and salt residue from my tour of
the coast. My black car looked more
gray.
The flight itself
was mostly uneventful. We got some chop
flying over Oklahoma and Arkansas from the remnants of Hurricane Harvey. But, I’ve flown through worse. I was just happy to be back in Atlanta at a
reasonable time. I do enjoy traveling,
but the trips home you just want to be over and done with.
David
8/2017
PS: I’m heading back for a return visit to Alaska in
June. In my research I came across something phenomenal I’d love to
see, but it’s kind of out of the way and elusive. There’s a not so little place called the
Bering Land Bridge Preserve. It's actually about 270,000 acres. Every fall
for anywhere between one week and two it goes all out with autumn color. It’s not the trees, it's the low plants on the ground. Imagine if you can
a huge, wide open area where the ground is matted in reds, yellows and oranges. Now imagine that as far as the eye can
see. Sounds pretty amazing right! Check out photographer Patrick Endres' web page and you'll see what I mean.
Well, it’s not
like autumn in the north Georgia mountains where you can check webcams and dash
up at peak color. The only way to get
there is by air. I would have had to fly
to Seattle, Anchorage and then Nome. From
Nome I would have had to charter a plane ride into the preserve. Yes, there is an airstrip and a Park Service
cabin, a very bare bones cabin. The
airstrip is alongside a place called the Serpentine Hot Spring.
There is a plane
service in Nome that does the trip fairly routinely for people who want to soak
in the hot spring or simply adventurous types. The spring is 171 degrees by the way. But here’s the thing, when the autumn colors are over, they’re
over. And, there’s no way to really
guess exactly when it will happen.
The flight to
Nome is a full day each way with the layovers.
It’s a long way to go for a chance.
But yes, I really did give it some consideration. I have a few days this month. But, I wouldn’t get much time in the preserve
before having to turn around and come back. I would spend more time travelling than exploring. Perhaps next fall...
