It's just north of Filoli.
Note that there was no grate over the viewing pool inside the temple was when I was a kid. You could look right down to see the water rushing in under the temple.
Drunk teenagers jumping into the temple and drowning in the 1970s put an end to that. It's still a neat place to visit.
The aquaduct empties into a canal behind the temple now, instead of underneath it.
There it is: some of the cleanest, best-tasting drinking water anywhere in the United States. San Francisco's water has its own Facebook page.
Crystal Springs Reservoir, and the San Andreas fault, as seen from a freeway rest-stop after lunch.
12 comments:
I have a distinct memory of looking down into the temple and seeing the rushing water when I was a kid. Funny how your post brought that back.
Totally unfamiliar with this temple. Cool post, as always. Alice
Drunk teenagers - because everyone wants a dead idiot in their drinking water.
One of these days I hope to come up and visit my sister, looking forward to tasting that famous water!
I seem to recall it somehow flowed in from all sides and down the center. Anyone else have that recall, I was super small when Dad held me out over it....
That's how I remember it too.
It was most definitely wide open many years ago - I can tell you a little story... my fraternity at a nearby college (shall remain nameless) held our clandestine initiations once a year on late-nite moonlit fall evenings here for several years in the mid 80's. After several fifths of Jack D, we'd walk the pledges through the shallow outer pool and then initiate them in the temple and I distinctly remember it being wide open and you could see what looked like a massive toilet bowl flushing incredible amounts of water over all the edges of a circular pool into the lower channelway... it was always very tempting for one of us to jump over and see if you could swim under the tunnel out the the flume, but no one ever tried it, at least not with our frat.
Yep, back in the hippie days, we'd come down from SF and chill there -- smoking something was very much involved.
In those days it was a wide open basin
and to see the tremendous flow of water through it was a total rush, in more than one way!
I, too, have distinct memories of peering over the edge being held fast by my father. The force and power of the water was terrifying and haunts my dreams to this day.
It was only through this post that I validated that strange experience.
We went there several times when I was a child. It was wide open and one of the scariest places I ever saw. I always had the most awful compunction to jump into it. It is still frightening to think about. My first visit was in the mid 50's.
Thank you! I thought my memory was slipping (or I was more stoned than I thought, "back in the day") but one of my few memories of the 60's was watching the water gushing through the Temple. Sorry to hear they had to cover it up but good to know I haven't totally lost it at 63 ;~)
I, too, have vivid memories from the late 50's of being lifted up to the temple's edge at age 5 and peering down below - completely shocked by the powerful, roaring, terrifying water rushing in from all sides. It was humanly impossible not to briefly imagine falling in and want to quickly get away … VERY scary!
Two years later, at age 7, I was alone at the dirt turnout on Canada Rd. (the only parking area for the temple at that time) - waiting for the late, small bus to girls' Summer Day Camp in Huddart Park. Already concerned about my situation and ready to run into the Pulgas Park, if need be, it didn't help that I could clearly hear the loud roar of water rushing inside the temple. Still haunting after all these years …
I, too, have vivid memories from the late 50's of being lifted up to the temple's edge at age 5 and peering down below - completely shocked by the powerful, roaring, terrifying water rushing in from all sides. It was humanly impossible not to briefly imagine falling in and want to quickly get away … VERY scary!
Two years later, at age 7, I was alone at the dirt turnout on Canada Rd. (the only parking area for the temple at that time) - waiting for the late, small bus to girls' Summer Day Camp in Huddart Park. Already concerned about my situation and ready to run into the Pulgas Park, if need be, it didn't help that I could clearly hear the loud roar of water rushing inside the temple. Still haunting after all these years …
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