February 25th
– March 3rd 2013
Well,
we have moved to Sunnyvale and started our additional eight months in
California. On Monday, I drove J. to work and then drove to Windy
Hill Open Space Preserve. It was within (or just pass) the town of
Portola Valley. It was pretty cold morning and I felt it. I started
to walk (about 7.5 miles planned). It was fine except that I felt
kind of sick. Oh well, I kept going (up) and was looking forward
going down. After a longer while, I was getting closer to Windy Hill
ridge and mountain top and had some great views. There I realized
that I was walking along the Skyline Boulevard road and we stopped by
this preserve before. At that point, sun was completely up and
shining all over the place. I felt slightly better. The views from
the tops (there were three smaller hill tops) were incredible (as
usual) and very enjoyable. I saw few people on bicycles and several
woman walking really fast up the hill. The way down was nice fire
road (steep like SF streets). I had to drive to San Mateo, I checked
the apartment last time and dropped the keys. The drive to Sunnyvale
(via 280) and not much afterward. In the evening, I had to pick J. up
from the work (relatively normal traffic).
On
Tuesday, we took it easy and stayed mostly at home. We got our tax
documents prepared and sent to the company. In the afternoon (after
long phone call about Alaska) we drove to downtown Mountain View. We
walked the main street (mostly restaurants). Kind of goofy. It was
nice day though. We spent a bit of time in the used bookstore (really
nice one) and went home after that. Not much going on. On Wednesday,
we drove across Dumbarton bridge into Coyote East Bay Park. Even
almost at ten o'clock there was still quite bad traffic on 101.
Surprisingly, there was a visitor's center and it was open. It looked
interesting, mostly flat with a lot of marsh land and few hills
between the land and the bay. It was a bit cold too (it changed after
couple of minutes). We had about five miles of walking ahead of us.
There were many ducks in the marsh. Some of theme were really funny
when they were diving. It was really nice walk, flat and pretty
peaceful (and sunny).
We
saw a bay, but it was different, there were still pieces of land
dividing water into many “pools”. No idea if it was natural or
man made. And we started to go up. For being pretty small, they were
steep hills. Couple of older guys were flying some types of model
planes on one of the hills. The views (360 degrees) were again pretty
amazing, even there was some fog in the distance. Because of that, we
did not really see Oakland or San Francisco. There was some plant
growing in the water around the shore and it was pretty yellow (again
interesting picture). From the top, we walked down to the parking
area. Some wild flowers began to bloom (trees as well).
Next
to the parking lot and the park area there, we found a butterfly
garden. We even saw few butterflies and one blue bird. There were
some plants already in bloom, but mostly the garden was just waking
up from “harsh” California winter. It was really pretty
(especially in February). From the park we drove to Fremont (many new
apartment complexes) and boring area. Later I read Fremont was
created by incorporating four or five communities in mid 1950's. That
explained the lack or the downtown (or weirdness of it). It was a
strange cluster of offices, strip malls and houses. We drove around
hoping for something more, but did not find it. We stopped at the
Central Park, which was fine. We sit on the bench for a while,
watching the lake and many small ducks walking in the park. It was
quite funny. Drive home. End of the day.
On
Thursday, we took 101 to Gilroy (garlic capitol of world). It was
nice to look on northbound 101 (almost stopped so many times) as we
were driving on pretty much empty freeway. I even got passed by “self
driving” Google car. There was a welcome center in the outlet
center in Gilroy. We stopped there, talked a bit with the lady and
got some stuff. Another stop was downtown Gilroy. Not really special,
many closed shops and kind of lacking the appeal. J. went into two
antique stores. It was really nice and sunny day. On the way from the
city (we were making smaller loop via Santa Cruz) we stopped at
Syngenta gardens company. They apparently produce many “innovative”
flowers for the market (like Home Depot) and some of their gardens
are open to public (even they do not sell anything). We looked around
(not much at the moment) and went into one of the greenhouses without
the sign (not open for public). It looked like there was some
conference of buyers. The flowers were obviously pretty, but it was
weird to be there with all those people. We left quickly.
The
drive across the mountains (more like hills or ridge I guess). It was
really pretty, many vineyards, some farms and forest. We stopped at
Hecker Pass and looked down the valley. It was nice view. And more
down hill driving. We got into Watsonville (just drove through). It
was strange town with couple nicer streets, the rest looked pretty
run down. Pretty strong Hispanic community (many signs in both
languages). We stopped at the street stand as there was sign for 10
grapefruits for 1 dollar. Decent selection and prices. Otherwise
nothing, we got on highway 1 heading to Santa Cruz.
Through part of the town (apparently
not Santa Cruz yet) we drove down to the coast. There was Rio del Mar
beach. There were quite a few people and it was pleasant. We walked
along the beach to the boardwalk. At the end of it was something that
looked like ship (or remains of it). When we got at the end of the
walk we saw it was made mainly out of concrete. Strange. Later I read
it used to be ship called SS Palo Alto. In mid 20's converted into
entertainment venue in Santa Cruz and after the company went bankrupt
abandoned there. Interesting. After that, we drove to town, stopped
by Costco for gasoline and some groceries and were too tired for
anything else, so we drove home. Nice day.
J. worked Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
I did not do much. On Saturday, I dropped J. off at the work and
drove to Skyline Boulevard and took a serious walk in Stevens Park.
The forest was nice (as usual), but nothing special and pretty much
no views. For almost two miles I was going downhill (which was not
too bad except thinking about way back – same way). So at the end,
it was more exercise walk than pleasure walk. There were some
interesting creek crossing (rocks). I saw many deer, there were as
well many lizards on the trails (getting warmer I suppose). To my
surprise, they had abundance of “traffic” signs in few places. On
the way home (I took road number 9) I saw probably 30 people riding
the bike uphill (good for them). After a week in Sunnyvale I have to
say that it is just fine.
