South of San Francisco is the town of Mountain View. In 1956 the first company to develop silicon semiconductor devices was located there. The area is now known as Silicon Valley. Shoreline Park is built on an old landfill. It features an artificial lake and golf course. It has many trails and is adjacent to the bird sanctuary.
Here are a few photos taken by Lastech at sunrise.
Last week we took a lovely hike through Tennessee Valley. It is located North of San Francisco in Marin County. The valley and cove are named after the Steamship Tennessee who ran aground there in 1853. Remnants of the ship can still be seen at low tide.
Continue reading “Tennessee Valley, a Cove and a Shipwreck”
The California Palace of the Legion of Honor is known around here as The Legion of Honor. It is a three-quarter scale adaptation of the 18th-century Palais de la Legion d’Honneur in Paris.
An American example of Beaux-Arts architecture, it is located in Lincoln Park in the Northwest corner of The City. It was built to honor the soldiers of WWI and is home to a beautiful collection of fine art. The museum houses about 4000 years of ancient and European art. It also has a fine Rodin collection.
Adjacent to the museum, The Holocaust, a memorial sculpture by George Segal can be found.
The museum wasn’t open when we were there, but that’s because we arrived at sunrise. Instead, we were treated to the sight of a coyote trotting through the golf course and a lovely view of the Golden Gate Bridge.
In our travels around the city of San Francisco, we have come across wonderful examples of architecture.
This temple is said to be one of the first Hindu temples in the Western Hemisphere. Built in 1905 it served as a temple until 1959 when it outgrew the small building and was replaced by a much larger temple a few blocks away. The old temple now serves as the headquarters for the Vedanta Society of Northern California.
According to the Vedanta Society of Northern California:
Vedanta is the source of one of the world’s oldest major living religions, Hinduism. It is based on the philosophical books known as the Upanishads, which form the concluding portions of the ancient Indo-Aryan scriptures, the Vedas. The word “Vedanta” is, in fact, another word for the Upanishads. It means, literally, the end (anta) of the Vedas; it also means the culmination of spiritual knowledge (veda).
The history of the temple begins at the Chicago Worlds Fair in 1893. The fair held a World Parliament of Religions. Swami Vivekananda visited San Francisco after attending the conference. Here, he attracted a good many people to his lectures. They formed the Vedanta Society in 1900.
An early pamphlet published by the Society noted that the Temple
“…may be considered a Hindu temple, a Christian church, a Mohammedan mosque and a Hindu …monastery.”
In 1907-08, the temple was topped with four domes and a crenelated tower. On Webster Street, the crenelated tower represents Christianity. On the corner, is the double bulb. This one is patterned after a Hindu temple in the Bengal region of India.
On the Filbert Street side starting on the left (East end), is a two-stage octagon. It’s patterned after a Shivite temple in India. Interestingly, it’s topped with an Islamic crescent, which, in turn, is topped with a trident. The next dome looks like Heshey Kisses. It is a miniature replica of a temple in Benares, India. The dome on the end is a copy of the architecture of the Taj Mahal.
Recently we paid a visit to the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. The lighthouse is located about 50 South of San Francisco. The lighthouse is park of the California State Park System. Whaler’s cove, located nearby belongs to the Peninsula Open Space Trust and is finally open to the public again. The area is great for whale watching, bird watching, and tidepools.
Continue reading “Pigeon Point Lighthouse and Whaler’s Cove”
Not long ago, we got up very early. We headed out to Twin Peaks for the sunrise. With an elevation over 900 feet, it’s a beautiful place to watch the sun come up. Usually, at this time of year, the peaks are shrouded in fog. We were lucky this time.
Last Week I posted about a poisonous plant exhibit at the Conservatory of Flowers. Of course, we made a point of visiting the rest of the Conservatory. I hope you enjoy these photos as well.
I’m sorry we haven’t been posting more. Lastech and I are getting used to a new work schedule so the posting times are a tad off these days. We’ll get adjusted soon.
It is almost the first of June and it’s still raining here. We should be well into the dry season already. Sadly, the cold and rain that we’re getting here is turning into horrible swarms of tornadoes to the East. I love the rain, but I hope this ends soon.
The other day, we took advantage of the sunshine and went to McLaren Park to visit the duck pond (reservoir). It wasn’t raining, but the clouds were beautiful. First, we walked up the hill to the water tower where we had a wonderful view of Bernal Hill and downtown San Francisco.
After that, we headed on down to the pond. The pond is where a lot of people take their dogs for a swim and water games. There were quite a few dogs, so the ducks were hanging out under the shrubbery. The clouds were beautiful and so was the pond.
A couple of weeks ago, we went back to the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park to see a special exhibit running through October 30, 2011 called Wicked Plants: Botanical Rogues & Assassins.
According to the Conservatory of Flowers website:
Paralysis, strangulation, derangement – these are just a few of the misdeeds of the plant kingdom as chronicled by award-winning author Amy Stewart in her 2009 New York Times Bestseller, Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln’s Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities. And now, something wicked this way comes. It’s mayhem under glass, as the Conservatory of Flowers transforms its Special Exhibits Gallery into an eerie Victorian garden full of Mother Nature’s most appalling creations. Building on the fascinating plant portraits in Stewart’s book, the Conservatory introduces visitors to living examples of dozens of infamous plants that have left their mark on history and claimed many an unfortunate victim, like the castor bean, implicated in the 1978 “umbrella murder” of communist defector BBC journalist Georgi Markov, and the strychnine tree, nineteenth-century serial killer Dr. Thomas Neill Cream’s poison of choice for troublesome spouses and lovers. It’s a who’s who of botanical rogues and assassins. Meet them if you dare
It was a good exhibit and we hope to go back before it ends. Here are some of the photos we took. I have labeled the plants I’m familiar with. There were some that I didn’t catch. I hope you enjoy them.
Continue reading “Wicked Plants: Botanical Rogues & Assassins”
We love to wander the trails above the San Francisco Bay between Baker Beach and the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s the time of year for flowers and wildlife and lovely sunsets. Here are a few of my favorites. I hope you enjoy them.
