Golden Gate

We spent a lot of time in the Japanese gardens

Steve on top bridge

Taiwanese pavilion ceiling

Cranes are special to Asian culture yet hard to keep live cranes in their gardens  Solution: fake cranes

various flavored jellies we had for snacks in the tea house

this scrub jay let us come within a foot of him

hooded merganser among the ducks

Muscovy duck...so ugly

the water looked like pearlized green paint. This is Storr Lake

We headed off Sunday to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Not a cloud in the sky. The little bit of wind was from the arid east yielding record high temps. For the most part, we were on the cooler, western part of the city but still plenty hot. And we did go to the east side to pick up my niece and have dim sum in Chinatown. One of the dishes we selected was "house special noodle' What made it special? Tripe, geoduck and a few parts I couldn't identify along with scallops and shrimp. After walking around Storr Lake and on its island, we visited the Japanese Tea Garden. Very pretty. Then off to find the various tiled staircases I had found on line which I have pictured in an earlier blog. I was unaware how many flights these staircases consisted of. And up to Grandview Park, 300 or so stairs later. A hot day for stir climbing. iPhones suck for views so I will include Steve's at some point.

We are back to Michigan. Sad to see that so many of my flowers are dead in our absence though they are annuals and will be dead from frost in a few weeks anyway. The beds got watered at least. Rain started the day we returned. I assume flights were delayed because our plane had to fly in circles for 45 minutes waiting for a gate. We were thrilled to get TSA pre-check again but not thrilled that the precheck line was 3x as long as the regular security. A couple in front of us left to go through regular security. Even though our line was longer, we made it through faster than they did plus Steve didn't have to slowly take off his shoes and put them on again along with his belt.

Back to running in the woods so different than running along the ocean.