Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Las Pulgas Water Temple

Now, how about a field trip report?
The day after Thanksgiving we took a long drive up to Half Moon Bay to meet up with my brother and his wife for lunch at Sam's Chowder House. I've always wanted to try a lobster roll, and I got my wish, apparently theirs is one of the five best sandwiches in the whole country (at least according to The Today Show). I'd agree, it was completely, over-the-top heavenly and perfect. Oh man, I just looked up this article and now my mouth is watering because they had a picture of this sandwich. Just think all that delectable lobster without the work of digging it out of what is basically a spider sitting there in front of you on your plate.


On our way back over the hill we stopped to visit one of our favorite "local's only" spots, the Las Pulgas Water Temple. It is a really beautiful spot, that hardly anyone knows about or goes to, and as you'll see I took a lot of photos. Here is the Water Temple. It was built in 1938 and is part of the San Francisco watershed, it is where the Hetch Hetchy water comes into the system.

Circling around the top of the monument is a quote from Isiah 42:20 "I Will Give Water In The Wilderness And Rivers In The Deserts to Give Drink To My People"

I went around the whole thing taking pictures, but since it was late afternoon, half of them aren't very legible.

This is inside looking up. I guess there is no roof so that they can catch the rain that falls in the water system that is directly below.
I loved this big old oak tree, there was a large limb that had been taken off, and right in the middle of it was a new green sprout. You can see that on the right.
The cypress lined reflecting pool was really lovely. Usually there are birds, ducks, etc. not that day for some reason.
I liked the long spiky shadows of the cypresses across the lawn.

Some marker set in the concrete, with no identifying numbers, kind of a useless marker really.

There were three types of mushrooms that I found, and Zach photographed. A very moist place of course so lots of mushrooms.
Zach is getting really good with the camera, lots of practice.


An impromptu altar that I made in an old light fixture. Gave thanks for this abundance of clean, fresh water in such a state of dryness half the year.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanks for suggesting the trip to the water temple. it was a beautiful day.

Anonymous said...

Nice to see they've got it open again. Last time I was by there it was under restoration so I'll have to go check it out now.

You should check out the Filoli Gardens next time you're up that way too.

Anonymous said...

Lovely! I will have to make a pilgrimage. And I'll leave behind my cynical self that was thinking people in other parts of the state probably want a biblical quote that says something like "And I shall take water from the people it really belongs to and give it to the rich snobs in the Bay Area who drink bottled water anyway." ;-) (It's the fever talking.)