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<\/p>\n\n7:53. Friday the 13th. Have French Toast at Lori’s Diner because I couldn’t resist the name. Take bus #38 along Geary St. toward the Golden Gate Park. I get the street names mixed up (because I want to get off at Park Presidio Blvd, but get off at Presidio\/Mason instead). So I walk by the University of San Francisco and at 10:AM enter the park at the northeast corner, at Fulton and Stanyon St. Almost immediately I’m plunged into a completely different and more congenial world.\n<\/p>\n
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\n I must really be a country person, not a city person. At first I’m reminded of Tatton Park<\/a>, but in the Golden Gate Park<\/a> the wider paths meander as if they were not laid by man, and there are many smaller paths, almost rabbit paths, which snake deep into the dark and magic forests of plants. I walked fifteen minutes and saw only two people. (According to their websites, Tatton Park is 1000 acres and the Golden Gate Park is 1017 acres, but it seems much, much larger.)\n<\/p>\n \nAt first I walked along English-style lawns bordered by huge trees. Then I entered a forest of ferns. And finally I found one of the sites I’d come to see, the Conservatory of Flowers. Unfortunately, it was closed for renovation.\n<\/p>\n \nAlthough the Golden Gate Park seems like a special preserve of nature, it is actually a man-made construct. Formerly covered by sand dunes, it was completely transformed by John McLaren<\/a>, an assistant gardener in the Royal Botanical Gardens at Edinburgh, who came to San Francisco in 1870.\n<\/p>\n I must admit that I had no idea of the size of Golden Gate Park nor of its history when I first came to wander in it unexpectedly…My preference for exploring any place on foot, without a map or a guide book, keeps me alert to anything I may encounter and in a constant state of surprise. –Chiang Yee “The Silent Traveller in San Francisco”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"photo:](\"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/postcards\/GoldenGatePark2.jpg\")
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