Stroll Discovery - Pigeon Shit Aside

While still recovering from my sinus infection (now hacking only during mornings and evenings), I decided to make another stroll through Lake Merced.


There's a monumental statue off the side of the road: a monument to Juan Bautista De Anza, donated  by the citizens of Sonora, Mexico. As bronze statues go, it's fairly mundane and the only truly beautiful thing about it is the horse. It (the statue) didn't have much in the way of bird droppings, so I decided to look De Anza up, thinking that he was a nasty enough character that even the birds didn't deign to shit on him. 


It turns out I was he was a trifle wrong: it seems that he was an explorer trying to find workable land routes to Alta California, and although he took three padres on his expeditions, there are no findings of the forced conversions normal for the time. The statue's plaque, however, incorrectly listed him as the "founder" of San Francisco when  in fact, he never made an establishment here, that being the job of Moraga.


I wonder if De Anza appreciates the setting: on one side busy highway and on the other side,  a lake with gorgeous sunsets.


Not bad.