The swan

During my second excursion into the city with my rag-tag band of adventurers, we found ourselves somewhere known as "The Exploratorium". Leah, Margret, Long-Jimmy and I. It was this huge megalithic structure built in the style of ancient Greece with massive pillars standing dozens of feet tall. Perhaps five stories? I don't know. They were huge though, and quite imposing.
     To some people this may not sound so thrilling, but to me it was great. Chilling out in the shade of these huge stone slabs, was an immense white swan. I think it was a Mute Swan, because it made no sounds but it could have just been a 'pretty quiet trumpeter swan', regardless, that was the hugest bird I've seen in a long time. Not counting ostriches (I may have seen them at the zoo) or Emus (same as ostriches) that was probably the largest bird I'll lay eyes on for a while.
     Aside from swangantua, there were also some turtles living in the same water. I've lived 25 years, and never before had I ever seen a wild turtle. It was very awesome to me, I was totally okay with seeing living turtles, and I was even more okay with seeing a tiny baby turtle chilling on a rock only a few moments later. Within a 10 minute span, I saw turtles and a freakin' huge swan. It was excellent.
     I didn't mention it in the entry about the parrots, but I also for the first time saw what I believe was a Clark's Grebe. I saw another one or two of them that day. It all made me very giddy and happy. Another bird to add to my list was a mysterious white crane, which was too far away to identify. I saw three different instances of a white crane, all within 5 miles of each other, so it is entirely possible that I saw the same bird three times. I could have seen one twice, and one once, or even simply three separate birds. I don't know if they have a population of white cranes in San Fran, but I do know they have at least one, though to be more geographically correct I saw the white crane in Burlingame.