– adventuring with ash –

My sister & I started off our morning at the Sutro Baths, which was awesome. You can read about that here. After the baths, we started our journey “half-way through San Francisco”. Well, that’s what I’m calling it. At the end of the night, we had walked over 10 miles, 23,000 steps, & technically, half-way through San Francisco.

Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California, starts at one end of San Francisco, at the beach. San Francisco is only 7 miles across, which sounds small, but there is A LOT of ground to cover. Golden Gate Park stretches from one end and due to its length of 3.5, almost 4 miles, it stretches about half-way through San Francisco’s city. Take a look at what I mean here:

Coming in from the Sutro baths at the top left, I think we kind of underestimated how much walking we’d be doing. Golden Gate Park is huge, bigger than Central Park in New York. We had to walk from the Sutro Baths, past a huge stretch of beach before we even stepped foot onto the base of the park. We had walked a ton the day before too. I knew I planned a lot of walking for us, it just didn’t seem all that bad in my head LOL. All of it was so worth it though.

When we first got to the base of Golden Gate Park, it was beautiful. Big, towering trees to our left, glistening blue waves to our right. We made our way into the park to begin our journey. The first thing we came across was the Park’s Dutch Windmills. In the spring, February-April, they plant colorful tulips and other flowers at the base of the Windmill. We were lucky enough to come during this time. It was beautiful!

After the Dutch Windmills and Tulip garden, we headed our way further into the park. We came across the Bison Paddock next. Fun Fact, the American Bison is the national mammal of the United States. Bison were first introduced to the park way back in 1891, as an effort to preserve/revive the species and have been there ever since. They first introduced a male bison to the park, then a female bison a year later. Over time she gave birth to over 100 calves.

In 1984, many of the Bison got sick. They were moved to a new paddock, and the mayor at the time gifted the park 12 new bison, that she was gifted from a circus. The new herd had 2 male bison, who have since been removed for being too aggressive. Today, 10 female bison remain in the park.

After the bison paddock, we walked to Spreckels Lake at the park and enjoyed the ducks and giving our legs a break. In the lake were these cool looking fish I wish I got a photo of. They were some smart fish; they’d follow us as we walked and popped their head above water as if they were trying to get a better look at us. We knew we still had a ton of walking to do, so the rest was nice.

We stopped at Annie’s Hotdogs, a pop-up stand in the park. When I tell you this hotdog HIT. It was like a glass of ice-cold lemonade in the blazing heat. Seriously so good hahah. To be fair, anything is amazing when you’ve barely ate and have walked miles. But I know it’d taste just as good any other time.

Eventually, after a ton of walking and stopping to admire the different flowers, we made it to the main event, the California Academy of Sciences. It was awesome, and well worth all of the walking we had done. We came across two beautiful fountains with ducks hanging out in them at the entrance. The trees at the front were all dried-out but it was a cool look, they had such unique branches.

Immediately walking into the building, you see a huge statue of a Tyrannosaurus rex. Then you see the Rainforest to your left, the planetarium to your right, and underneath is the Aquarium. I was super bummed cause the planetarium was closed for maintenance the ONE day we were there 😦 I wanted to do that part pretty badly, but what we did see was an awesome experience.

I wrote all about my experience at the aquariums and the rainforest here if you want to check it out 🙂 I am a big aquarium lover and this one I can say was super cool! The rainforest dome is a super cool exhibit as well. They also had a huge museum room with all different types of animals, none were alive but you could see up close what all these exotic animals look like. At the end you come across a live exhibit.. penguins! It was the perfect way to end our time at the Academy of Sciences.

After that we just walked another 20 minutes out the other side of the park, and then to the Painted Ladies. The Painted Ladies are the houses that were shown in the “Full House” intro. Iconic Houses!

After this we headed to Twin Peaks, which I’m going to do a whole separate post on because it was such a cool experience and an amazing view that I recommend everyone in the area to check out! But thats about all for my Golden Gate Park experience, it was a super fun day and all of the walking was worth it for sure 🙂

I’d definitely recommend a trip to this park if you find yourself in the area!