and it was a beautiful day....maybe i was feeling more curious because of the weather? i decided that i'd pull tess over to check out the stone. in a way it was like that story in what the bleep do we know?, where the indigenous people of central america couldn't see the columbus ships until their shaman convinced them they were out there. it was like i had to read the stone and be told that there was a wildflower garden there in order to see the two little bridges and stairs and walkways... tess and i checked the whole thing out, even crossing both bridges. each bridge had a little medallion on it, indicating in whose name(s) the gift had been made. if you look, you can still kinda see the remenants of landscape design....there was what seemed to be an old marble/stone bench that was missing it's top slab you can see tessy circled in red, trying in total vain to get at whatever small creature has taken up residence there. dude, there were even old labels on some of the plants and lots of small, hidden, stairways tess was lovin' it! it made me kinda sad, in a more thoughtful kind of way. i mean, people gave money to have this garden and it's various "highlights" made in memory of loved ones, and it was just let go...what were the circumstances behind this transition from garden of memories to garden of gifts long forgotten?