Animal Statues in Golden Gate Park

A day out with the animal statues in San Francisco — that was the whole plan, and Golden Gate Park delivered. The park is over a thousand acres, bigger than Central Park, and there are sculptures tucked all along the paths, which for a three-year-old is roughly the same as an amusement park.

She climbed onto an enormous stone cat and sat up there like she owned it, hearts leggings dangling off its shoulders, while the little one reached up and stuck a hand right in its open mouth, feeling around the teeth. No fear at all from either of them.

Between statues she rode in the carrier through the tropical plantings — banana leaves, palms, bamboo overhead — which is part of what the botanical garden here does with its fifty-five acres and nine thousand kinds of plants. The bronze gorilla was the last one, worn shiny in spots from all the kids who hugged it before she did.