another reason why i love this city

Yesterday I decided to go explore Golden Gate Park. I really wanted to see the bison, but I'll have to go back another day for them because I didn't make it that far. I was on foot, and I had come on foot from the library downtown, and the park is huge. Inside the park are several museums, conservatories (the plant kind, not the music kind), lakes, sports fields, playgrounds, specialized gardens, picnic grounds, and so on. Oh, and of course the buffalo paddock. Seriously. Buffalos (ok they're really American bison, but who can tell?) in the middle of the city.

All throughout the park there are roads for motor vehicle traffic and countless paths for walking and biking. Few places can make me feel so content as a woodland path carpeted with pine needles. And the smell! A mingling of redwood and eucalyptus and I don't even know what other fresh greenery. Oh, it's lovely.

A side effect of having discovered for myself this marvelous place is a really (in many ways) brilliant sunburn. My face got sunscreened in the morning but my arms, unfortunately, were neglected. And you know, even when it's very sunny, you don't realize that you're getting burned when the air temperature is only about 75 degrees. It's a few hours later that it hits you. And then you run over to Safeway at 10 at night because you know you won't sleep well without some concentrated aloe vera gel, only to find that they're all out and you have to settle for an inferior aloe-tinged lotion.

If you are at all familiar with my photographic tendencies, you know that I have a particular penchant for photographing flora. Tree trunks, flower blossoms, curiously-shaped succulents, weeds gone to seed, you name it, and if it belongs to the plant kingdom, I'd love to take a picture of it. And Golden Gate Park is a fine place for introducing your camera to some lovely plant specimens. Take a look: