Shadow Shot Sunday

I've just joined Shadow Shot Sunday and here is my contribution for today. I shot this in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco back in 2009, but it's the best I could come up with right now, seeing that it is currently nighttime and pouring rain outside here in southern Italy!

That's not my dog Eden, but looks just like so many photos that I have taken of her running in GG Park. I miss her badly and hope to get back to see her in October.

40th Anniversary of Woodstock - Part 2

I'm stubborn, so I refuse to let Blogger get the best of me and I am going to continue my previous post where I left off, in the hopes of having better luck this time with the spacing issue.

 Fashion

Great body, but maybe wrong party?

5' x 4' sculpture

Teepees

Tie-dyed backdrops

A magnificent tree that has seen it all many times over

Something this little girl really wants

Statements

There was one naked man, but it wasn't this one. It would have been better if it had been.

Believe me.

I held up for 3 hours. By the time I left, at 1:30 p.m., the crowds had grown, the sun was high, and I was craving cool air and quiet.

Ahhhhh.

40th Anniversary of Woodstock

I spent three hours today at the 40th anniversary of Woodstock in Golden Gate Park, and I survived. I survived the inhalation of three kinds of smoke: copious Marihuana, sage smudge sticks, and, worst of all, billowing clouds from the burning flesh of chickens and pigs coming out of the food vendors' stands. I'm not a vegetarian, because I do eat fish, but egads, that smell was bad and I could not find a thing to eat. All I really wanted was a beer, but there was no alcohol for sale. It seemed like all they were selling was water, so maybe I missed a whole section, which seems unlikely since I walked back and forth from one stage to the other under the blue skies and energizing sunshine, at least four times.

When I got there at 10:30 the crowds were still sparse but very colorful and already joyous.

There were even entrepreneurs in the mix.

It was really too hot for dogs, but there were many, some enjoying it more than others.

Good boy, human and dog

What I enjoyed the most were the colors, particularly on several buses.

Blogger s making me crazy...just saying. I am going to end here before I lose the entire

post.

 

Sweet Inspiration

That is the name of the rose pictured above, which I photographed this morning in the Rose Garden of Golden Gate Park, during my weekly walk there with my dog, Eden.

I'm posting it as a wish for all of us this coming week, that we may receive some "sweet inspiration" in one form or another.

Prayerbook Cross

One of the few things I like about living in my current neighborhood, where I've been for three years now, is that I can walk about four blocks and enter Golden Gate Park, through the Rose Garden no less.

So continuing in my recently begun habit of going for walks in Golden Gate Park at least once a week, and more often if I can, this morning I took Eden for our 12th walk. Why I didn't start this weekly walk tradition sooner, I don't know. In any case, today I didn't take any photos of her cavorting on the lawns because I feel safe letting her off leash only on Saturdays when the main road is closed to traffic.

Instead we went somewhere new.

I've passed this sign several times and always wondered where it led. So we followed it up a small hill and arrived at the monument in the photo at the top of this post.

You can click on the photo to make it larger (don't know why only the first photo in each post can be enlarged, but maybe someday I'll find out...), but if you don't want to I'll tell you what the inscription says:

"Presented to Golden Gate Park at the opening of the Mid-Winter Fair January 1 AD 1894 as a memorial of the service held on the shore of Drakes Bay about Saint John Baptist's Day June 24 Anno Domini 1579 by Francis Fletcher - priest of the Church of England - Chaplain of Sir Francis Drake - Chronicler of the Servise. "

I'm not completely sure about the last four words because the stone is eroded where they are carved. In fact, the area seemed a bit neglected as well. When I read it I realized that if I had gone up there just two days ago I would have been there exactly on the 430th anniversary of the event it commemorates. It's such a strange feeling to think about walking where others who are long gone have walked, and that someday I too will be long gone.

Of course I also photographed plants, some whose name I know because they had a name tag, and most whose names I do not know. Maybe I'll enlist the help of Dave's Garden again.

'Honor' Rose

The folks at Dave's Garden did it again! The photos below are of

California Buckeye (Aesculus californica)

A Walk in the Park

On April 24th I started a routine of taking Eden for a walk in Golden Gate Park every Saturday morning, and more often when on vacation. Today was our 11th walk since that first one. Only Eden and I go because last September my sweetheart Asha died,

and Joshua would rather look out over cliffs by the ocean,

or sunbathe.

So it's just me and my Eden for our walks in the park.

We walk through the Rose Garden on our way in and on our way out. It's definitely the time to enjoy its bounty.

Kaleidoscope

Strike it Rich

Tournament of Roses

And one of my favorites, which I keep photographing over and over,

Windrush

The way I see it, you've got to fill your senses with beauty and color, whenever possible.