Day 2 — Sunday, April 26, 2015
In the morning, Tim & I popped over to the Haight Street Market for coffee. It’s a charming little high-end market. Their coffee bar features pour-over drip coffee — it’s strong and oh so good.
Tim makes Moby’s food from scratch, but that’s another post. This morning though, Moby’s breakfast consisted of a chicken back and neck, a couple of melted bone broth & turmeric cubes, and a whole egg.
He polished the whole mess off in under five minutes:
Then Tim set to work making Crabcakes Benedict for the three of us. It was to DIE FOR. You’d pay at least $30 for this in a restaurant.
Thoroughly stuffed now, I left the guys alone so they could get some work done while I wandered around. First, I explored Haight Street. Lots of transient hippies. Murals. Secondhand pot smoke. Tibetan shops — four in the Haight-Ashbury area alone, plus I spotted a high-end one downtown.
I ended up going back a day later and getting a ring for our singing bowl. Glad I did, too. The wooden stand it had been sitting on (under the plant to the left now) disappeared under the bowl, and with the bowl now sitting on the ring, its gonging sound reverberates much longer than before.
Got a couple of touristy items from a tie-dye shop:
Randomness on Haight Street:
Then I headed three blocks west to the east end of Golden Gate Park. What a gorgeous place.
My first destination: the Conservatory of Flowers. OMG this place is amaze-balls. It’s an enormous greenhouse and botanical garden housing a world-class collection of rare and exotic plants. Completed in 1878, it survived the 1906 earthquake and is the oldest building in the park. It was one of the first municipal conservatories constructed in the United States and is the oldest remaining municipal wooden conservatory in the country. For these distinctions and for its associated historical, architectural, and engineering merits, the Conservatory of Flowers is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the California Register of Historical Places. It is a California Historical Landmark and a San Francisco Designated Landmark.
It costs $8 to get in. WELL worth the money.
Ran across an outdoor swing dance class:
Beautiful park.
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I liked it better than Balboa Park.
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Now you’re making me sorry I didn’t buy a tie-dyed shirt for myself! I used to grumble to my daughter when we visited the Haight that “no way am I gonna wear a tie-dye shirt, unless I want to look like another tourist!” But thinking about it now, it’s more about letting your freak flag fly, proudly. 🙂
Beautiful shots of the park and the Conservatory! I also have fond memories of my younger daughter taking me to the Conservatory for Mother’s Day several years ago. They were having a bonsai show inside, and I got to see some beautiful local pieces. And yeah, the humidity. We don’t get much of it during the summers in the Central Valley, so walking into the tropical aquatics room reminded me of a midsummer day in the Midwest. (Which I don’t miss at all. :D)
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I used to have a number of really artistic Grateful Dead tie-dye shirts, but they’ve all disintegrated by now. So this one is sort of a replacement. And yeah, let that freak flag fly! I also wanted to make sure I didn’t cheat myself out of some truly touristy diversions, no matter how corny.
Ooh, a bonsai show. Would’ve loved to have seen that.
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I have a childhood friend that lives in San Francisco now, I may have to visit soon…..
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If you can flop on his couch and avoid paying for a hotel, it’s quite doable.
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Who the hell just whips up crabcakes benedict for breakfast? What is this sorcery?!
The Conservatory of Flowers looks stunning! I can almost smell the loamy, humid smell.
San Fran is definitely on my list of places to go for my next trip to the USA. And not just because Charmed was filmed there.
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Seriously! Sorcery, indeed. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Tim’s a pretty damn good cook.
It’d be unbearable on a hot summer day, but that day was perfect. There were some yummy smells in there.
It’s one of the most vibrant, culturally diverse, interesting, beautiful cities I’ve ever been to. And you all know I’m not a fan of cities.
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