Hannah Macauley and Alex Zaldastani were walking their mutt Ruby through Golden Gate Park on Sunday morning when out of the mist came their favorite memory from Burning Man 2024. There, resting in a dry lake bottom along the JFK Drive pedestrian promenade was Naga, the 100-foot sea serpent that had been a highlight on the playa.
“I thought we’d never see it again,” said Macauley, who was so shocked at the sight that she had to stop her walk and join a crowd of gathered admirers. “That’s the most magical thing about San Francisco. You are out walking and you stumble upon your favorite things.”
Sometime this week it will get more magical than it was in the Nevada desert because Rainbow Falls, the 50-foot manufactured waterfall that has been turned off during the installation, will be activated to pour water down and fill in the pond where Naga sits. After a grand opening Saturday featuring bubbles and mermaids, it will have a night lighting ceremony on July 28. The sculpture, at the western end of the promenade, just uphill from Transverse Drive, will be the payoff for making the trek downhill from the de Young Museum…