It was past
six pm by the time we were done with Hankido, but it was still light outside.
We had wanted to visit Grandma Read in San Francisco. After zooming over
the Bay Bridge and half-way across town to the top of the hill at Masonic
and Geary, we stopped briefly at Eden Villa to pick Grandma up for today's
excursion. Upon loading her into the car, we decided that a dessert
of pearl milk tea was in order, so we drove over to Wonderful Foods at 2110
Irving. It's fun trying all the different flavors they have. Grandma got
a hot almond milk tea, while Randy had a cold wheat germ milk tea (which
tastes a lot like ovaltine) and Ting had cold piña colada.
Next we drove down to the coast and along the Great Highway at the foot of
Golden Gate Park. After stopping for a few minutes to appreciate the flowers
(and shoot a few photos of the Windmill!), we headed around past the Cliff
House and up the cliffs to the east (upper) entrance of Sutro Heights Park
along 48th Avenue, off of Point Lobos Avenue.
We first discovered Sutro Heights Park when Grandma Read was living a few
blocks away on 43rd Avenue, and it became one of our favorite spots for afternoon
walks. Now that she lives a little farther away at Eden Villa, we don't make
it out so often, but today seemed just right, so it was off to the Heights!
We arrived pretty late -- a little after seven pm -- but the sun was still
high enough to be bright, and the sky was relatively clear. Sea birds were
soaring back and forth, while dogs and people enjoyed the fine summer evening
strolling along the coast. After a nice pause to appreciate the view from
the cliff-tops, we resumed our circuit about the park, stopping here and
there to appreciate the flowers and other sights, such as the Statue
of Diana, which was modeled after a mid-16th Century marble work now housed
in the Louvre.
One really neat thing about the park is the interesting mixture of native
California plants with exotics (like Himalayan rhododendrons and South African
proteas). The purists probably hate it, but I think the blending works pretty
well if you can overlook the tattered remains of the formal flowerbeds gone
to seed.
You can read about the history of the site by checking out the Bandit's write-up,
or you might like to read this missive written in
1902 by Charles Bundschu, exhorting the city to acquire the
property for a public park. Also very interesting are these woodcuts, photos and postcards
showing how the site looked circa 1890. As a last bit of trivia, the area
around Sutro Heights also provided backdrop to several important scenes in
Hal Ashby's 1971 film, Harold and Maude (a good enough reason to rent
that old chestnut once more!).
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