We're talking about Karl the Fog.

Every year, like clockwork, the marine layer rolls through the Golden Gate and does what it's done for millennia — swallows the bridge towers whole, drops temperatures 20 degrees from whatever the rest of California is enjoying, and reminds every tourist in shorts and flip-flops that they should have Googled "San Francisco summer weather" before packing.

The latest round of fog photography circulating online is, as always, stunning. The Golden Gate's international orange disappearing into a wall of white is one of those images that somehow never gets old, no matter how many times you've seen it. It's free public art on a scale that no municipal arts grant could ever fund.

And here's the thing — Karl's fog doesn't just look good. It's a natural air conditioner for a city whose leadership seems determined to make everything else more expensive. No carbon credits needed. No environmental impact report required. No five-year implementation timeline.

If you want to take it all in, one local resident recommends the Tunnel Tops playground in the Presidio — Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz as your backdrop, food trucks nearby, and actual available parking. In this city, "available parking" might be the most shocking part of that sentence.

San Francisco has real problems — a budget deficit, a fentanyl crisis, businesses still fleeing downtown. We cover those relentlessly. But sometimes it's worth pausing to appreciate the things about this city that work perfectly without any government intervention whatsoever.

Karl doesn't need a task force. Karl doesn't need a budget hearing. Karl just shows up.

If only we could say the same about Muni.