The San Franciscan Canine

​I have always thought the the life of a San Franciscan dog is one in which many canines would be envious. Although they live in a city, it a city where green space is respected and adored. For every few blocks of pavement, there is a half acre of green to shove your muzzle into, leave pee graffiti, and catch up on the local dog gossip. There are beaches to race along, ocean waves to splash in, hills to climb on and trees to sniff.

So this weekend we stayed in the city proper to explore the nature that dwelled closer to our urban abode.

The only problem is sometimes I forget where we have and haven’t been. If I tally up my time living in the Bay area, it comes to almost a year and a half over the past 9 years. Half of which I’ve spent residing in the city itself, half in the woods.
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I chose Lands End as my destination, but with a solid walk there up the coast. I parked south of the Lincoln way, the southern border of the Golden Gate Park and we walked northward to the End.

Rather than climb the steep sidewalk, I opted to go off-road and we took a path up a hill into a new park I had not expected: Sutro Heights Park.

​While Tucker and I explored the flat-topped park with evidence of buildings that once stood, statues that once must have shown in their glory days, and trees that stood tall, taking in the ocean breeze, I did not know its history. Only that it was a little bit of heaven in this already magical city.

​A little research later, I learned that Tucker and I had been strolling about the former estate of Adolf Sutro. Over hundred and thirty years ago, he purchased this land and built a rolling estate on its 22 acres, including the Sutro Baths down below. He replicated an Italian Garden (explains the statues) and had a mansion built overlooking the ocean (now the old foundations make sense.) It is a glorious view, and I wonder what it must have looked like back then. Was it all trees to the beach? No signs of human life at all?

Thanks to the internet, the wondering is fulfilled with fact.

He built a steam engine to get people from the city to Land’s End, so it must have been an unpopulated area. Now, it is part of the National Recreation area, and is tended to by neighborhood residents—because now everyone lives here.

This little hilltop paradise is well worth a visit—even an accidental one.
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As I came down off the Heights on the northern side, I realized that we had indeed done Land’s End before. I recalled the trail once I saw the parking lot. But since we were already there… Why not?

​And so we crossed the road, walked through the parking lot, and started on the trail that would take us to the northern view—to see the Marin Headlands across the water. Although I will take Nature’s art over human’s creations any day, the Golden Gate Bridge is a piece of human art I wholly appreciate.  The designers took their cues from Mother Nature, and it’s as natural as the land and sea itself.

​Taking only a short walk about Lands End we returned up and over through Sutro Heights Park again. I stopped at a few little informational plaques, telling me where the carriage would arrive, and about the concrete lions that once held sentinel to the drive like the New York City Library (but much smaller versions.)

​Walking back along Highway 1, with the sun setting to our right, and the wilds that had been domesticated to live in the urbanity of the city to our left, I felt grateful to be able to spend time here. Every day, the dogs of San Francisco—those who live their whole lives here—get to experience this. They live and love and play and rest among these majestic places and magical hideaways.

​Tucker and I are blessed to live this life wherein we get to experience how others live for months at a time. Our life is to experience as many lives as we can in our short journeys through time. Our adventures may lead us to travel thousands of miles from one place to another; but sometimes, like today, we can experience magical adventures without ever leaving town.