Golden Gate Park

There was a point, last week, when I was traveling around some of the northern parts of the beautiful state of California. I found myself uncommittedly wandering through San Francisco for a bit of time, and I had been spending an early morning with an old friend. We stopped by a farmer's market, where I found some of the best heirloom tomatoes ever, and a few pieces of fruit to snack on, before lunch. He then had to go to work, so I tagged along that far, to where the free shuttle took him to the UC Hospital which he caters for.
I'd asked him whereabouts we were, and what might strike my interest within walking distance (although pretty much everything in San Francisco is walking distance, by my standards), and he mentioned Golden Gate Park. My brain lit up immediately, as I'd heard so many great things about the large swath of public land. So, I saw him off, and made myself a cup of tea (I usually keep my tea leaves with me when I travel) with a generous contribution of hot water from Starbucks (they don't charge you for a cup of hot water, it's really nice when you're on the road), and sat down to ponder my day for a little before I walked down to the park.
Golden Gate Park was just a little north of the UCSF Medical Center, so I walked that way, and a bit west. Arriving at the park, I felt very satisfied by it's expanse. I could tell that the end of the park was not visible to me, and that it would take a good number of hours to travel it all, so I made my way in a roundabout fashion, walking all the trails.
Now, I will say that it is remarkable how many drunk homeless folk one can encounter in this park near the hour of 10am. One of them was quite friendly, and I think if he were not so inebriated he would have taken a better shot at harassing me for some money. We instead ended up talking for about five minutes. I did my best to understand my transient friend, though he was roughly incoherent throughout the majority of his mumbling. Down the path, another gentleman asked me to walk into the bushes with him, and when I asked him what for, he expressed his desire to sell me some pot. He was overtly disappointed by my response.
After a little bit of distance from those characters, I found myself on some quiet trails. There were a handful of gray squirrels frolicking about. I entertained myself by watching one pick apart a pine cone for the seeds inside. There were a handful of beautiful birds that I could not identify, lofting and playing above me. Further down the trails, a hummingbird came into my sight. I estimated it to be hovering somewhere around 120 feet above me, and a bit in front of me. It did something that was particularly interesting which was, from its highest point of flight, would dive-bomb straight down into a tree where I could not see it, and then immediately return to hover where it had previously been situated. It performed this ritual half a dozen times or so, before it flew off to do something else.

Anyway, in my walking, I saw several trails that were off the beaten path, per se. So I took one at random, and went deep into a more forested area of the park. I was pleased to find a peaceful place with an old fallen tree, that made for a great place to sit and think. I pondered perhaps to read the book by Tom Brown Jr. that a friend had given me. It was about that time that I looked to my left, and noticed the massive black-berry tree, bursting out of the flora, in the sunlight. This was a particularly exciting discovery, as it is the season for berries. I was also pleased to observe that, since this was far off the regular trails, there would be no concerns about pesticides or any other kinds of chemical sprays. There were observably dozens of ripe berries, amidst the thorny bush.
Unfortunately, I was not particularly well equipped to be fumbling around the thorns of the briar, and so I had to accept the fact that the thorns were going to be carving me out a bit, in trade for taking their fruit. I tried for the first bit of my harvesting to pluck only the berries that were not buried in the deeper parts of the briar, but after having eaten a few and realizing how good they were, I came to accept that I would have to go deeper into the bush. I managed to avoid getting cut to pieces, but my calves did suffer a bit for my belly.
I walked around more of the back-trails, discovering bum-nests and other black berry trees. I found a serviceable can-opener deep in one of the briars, and opted to take it home with me, since it was certainly not in a place that someone had intended to store it for later use. In the end, I covered about a half-mile of back trails, and took home about a pound of sweet black berries.