Category Archive: parks

Mar 26–Lake Merced

Kevin and I spent an afternoon walking around part of the huge Lake Merced in the southern part of the city.  I discovered it with a friend when we decided to do a 3 mile loop run a few weeks prior and wanted to take Kevin and Lola there.

I know, we’re terrible doggy parents, always making Lola pose in front of the weirdest statues (this one, if you can’t tell, is of three penguins).

Kevin & Lola at the end of the path surrounded by strawberry bushes.

I know my hair looks terrible.  Unfortunately, Kevin didn’t think to tell me before he snapped this photo!  Hahah.

Mar 26–Earth Hour 2011

The first time I heard about Earth Hour was when we were in Australia in 2008 and although I had never participated in it I thought it might be fun to do it this year.  So at 8pm on the 26th we shut off the lights and hung out by candlelight.

But of course we couldn’t just sit there and stare at each other in the dim light.  We had to do something.  And do something we did!  We spent a couple of hours messing around with flashlights, lasers and the camera to take some cool photos.  Kevin was the genius photographer behind all this and I “wrote” in the air with the light.

The first one was written with me facing the camera so I had to write backwards and in cursive–not the easiest thing, let me tell you!  But I think it turned out pretty good.

This second one we used a laser pointer and I wrote Lola’s name facing her.  The hard part was getting Lola’s body to be lit up so after I finished writing her name, Kevin flashed a flashlight on her for just a second so that her body could be captured in light (otherwise she would’ve been too dark to see).

I’ve determined that we should honor Earth Hour more often so that it will get us off our rears and do something fun like this!  🙂

Kevin and I made a goal to go on a hike as many Saturdays as possible.  So on Saturday 2/26 we went on a 5 mile hike through the Presidio in San Francisco.  The Presidio is a 1,500-acre urban national park at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge and although we had driven through it many times when we had visitors in town, we hadn’t explored much of it on foot.  We followed the map in a book we checked out at the library and, although there was a bit of a detour due to construction, we followed it pretty close.

There was rumor that it might snow in San Francisco the day of our hike but, as you can see, it was a super clear day over the Golden Gate Bridge!  We couldn’t have asked for better weather.

There were lots of old canons and army memorabilia out for people to see.  We thought this beautifully decorated canon was quite the sight:

Then we came upon an old army hospital:

Lola went galloping up the stairs…and ended up on the balcony, looking down at us:

So I ran up to join her for a photo opp on the balcony of the old army hospital. 🙂

Around the back of the hospital we found these two cottages which were built after the 1906 earthquake for refugees:

Nice little set up they had there!

I took a photo of Lola from the inside of the cottage and it wasn’t until later that I realized what she was doing at the time.  Nice way to show your respect for a piece of history, Lola!

Lola on the back steps of the hospital

Officer’s Row

Then we got stuck for a few minutes due to construction.  We were going to try to bypass the construction by zipping through the national cemetery but because dogs aren’t allowed we had to come up with another plan.  We decided to hike through the forest behind the cemetery to try to meet up with the path again (instead of taking the 2 mile detour back the way we just came!)  Luckily, it worked out perfectly and we saw some cool sights along the way.

Me and Lola hiking through the forest

We saw a couple of cool churches:

And here’s part of the national cemetery with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background:

Then we happened upon this weird pile of wood.  After contemplating what its purpose was and after Lola climbed on top of it (typical), we finally saw a sign describing it.  Turns out it’s a gray fox habitat!

Then we saw these huge block letters on poles out in the middle of a field.  One line we were able to make out said “resolve conflict with song” and we had no idea what the heck the purpose of it was.

Then we saw another sign which said that it’s a habitat for a bird.  Here’s a close-up of some of the letters, they were filled with straw.

I guess there are a ton of these artistic habitat displays that people can check out and they’re part of the Presidio Habitats Exhibition.  They’ll only be up through May 15th of this year so we gotta check out the rest!

Beautiful old brick building

“I live on the corner of Upton and Upton”–good lord.

A lone crane out in the field

Fallout shelter: Cool, now we know where to go.

Lola found this random mini castle out in the middle of the Presidio. So I had her pose in front of it since she’s like our little princess.  🙂

At the base of Golden Gate Bridge

View of the coast

The last third of the hike was along the Bay Trail which took us through Crissy Fields and along the beach.

Kevin made me and Lola go through this 4 foot tunnel that was filled with about an inch of water instead of taking the long way around. Crazy guy.

I can’t get enough of this view! And the bridge looked even more amazing on such a gorgeous day.