San Francisco Fall Colors

Christmas and winter are quickly approaching, but Fall colors are still present throughout California. After a rainy weekend in San Francisco, everyone was glad to see the sun shining Monday morning. I had planned to head back south en route for San Diego, but decided I couldn't pass on the opportunity to enjoy the day. After checking the surf and finding the tide far too high, I decided to head over to Golden Gate Park.

The crisp morning air was refreshing. I had been to the park several times, but had only seen a small portion of the sprawling grounds. I wandered the park for a few hours enjoying the unique blend of transitional fall colors and evergreen trees.

The development of the park dates back to the late 1800's, when the 1,000-acre plot of sand dunes was commonly referred to as the "outside lands" (at the time, the area was not considered part of San Francisco; today, the Outside Lands Music Festival is just one of the park's many large gatherings). The massive undertaking to transform this area into one of modern America's greatest city parks (New York's Central Park is only 4/5 the size of Golden Gate Park) was not easy; during the first twenty years of development, over 150,000 trees were planted throughout the park and many are still there today.