San Jose's Falafel's Drive In

In the heart of San Jose exists a 54-year old falafel stand. It has delightful murals and delicious everything. Guy Fiori's visit is memorialized in the murals that cover the walls of the outdoor eating area, as are the Nijmeh family that owns the place. It's simply called Falafel's Drive-In, and it must be seriously bustling when you can sit at one of their picnic tables, before the coronavirus messed that up. Today, we settled for take out.

We were in San Jose to run an errand, but we drove around too. We stopped in at Rollo's Donuts, established 1985, (also highly recommend) and while getting lost, saw some wonderful Victorian homes, mixed in with houses slapped up in the 1970s. My observation: San Jose is reasonably priced (for the Bay area), immigrant friendly, and a nice mix of old and new.

111 Places in Silicon Valley That You Must Not Miss, #66, Falafel's Drive In, 2301 Steven's Creek Blvd, San Jose, CA.

Silicon Valley 111: Bayfront parks, water tanks, Eichler houses, etc.

I am behind in visiting the 111 places in Silicon Valley that you must not miss. But some of it is due to this whole pandemic thing. Not sure  the PEZ museum in Burlingame and Bigfoot Discovery Center in Felton will ever reopen.  But here's the lowdown on places visited since July. 

 

Bedwell salt ponds. The salt has stained the water red. 

In July, we visited the Bedwell Bayfront Park (#32) in Menlo Park.  Named after a longtime mayor of the city, it's land reclaimed from a landfill.  The scent of wild anise is intermingled with the odor of a nearby sewage plant, and varies between pleasant and unpleasant.  But the real draw is the salt ponds that still dot the park, and acres of still-harvested salt ponds can be seen in the distance.  There is nothing quite like standing on a  crunchy solid bed of salt.  It made me nostalgic for for the Dead Sea in Israel.  Growing salt was the big industry of the valley, before it all went electronic. Cargill Industries  was the Facebook and Google of the 19th century, with about 8,000 acres of salt ponds in the Bay area. To cap off our visit to the salt ponds, we grabbed dinner to go at the Dutch Goose (#29), a hang out for Stanford students.  It was only takeout when we visited, so we got an order of the famous deviled eggs and some really good burgers to go. 

Hundred year old cacti tower over Steven
at Arizona Cactus Garden (in California).

In July we also visited the Arizona Cactus Garden (#97) on Stanford campus.  The garden was created in 1881, when Leland and Jane Stanford ordered up a cactus garden on their many acres of property. This was just a few years before their son Leland Jr. died, and they established the university in his name.  Quite close to the garden (which is beautifully overgrown and has huge succulents) is the mausoleum containing the Stanfords' remains, protected by the Angel of Grief.  

Endless marshes, SF Bay, and lots of electric towers. 

In August, we took Samuel to the Baylands Nature Park (#42) in Palo Alto, where we saw a lot of marshes and some intrepid parasailers, out on SF Bay.  The wind was ferocious.  We then took Samuel to the garage where it all started, the Hewlett-Packard garage (#46).  You can't go in, but you can peek at this one car garage that looks like a horse carriage through a metal grate.  This was where, in 1939, William Hewlett and David Packard manufactured the  HP200A audio oscillator.  Folks say there is where Silicon Valley was really birthed.  The house is a stately two story, built around 1905.  I pictured mid-century modern, maybe an Eichler model.  But Silicon Valley started well before that. 

Where Silicon Valley began - the HP garage. 

In September we visited a very large and very sad tree.  It's El Palo Alto (#44), the Eiffel Tower of Silicon Valley.  And yes, the tree that inspired Stanford's logo.  This historic tree is boxed in by a concrete culvert and a railroad track. It's also on life support, with a pipe running to the top of its 110 feet so that it can be regularly misted.  This 1,100 year old tree could be seen all the way to San Francisco a hundred years ago, and was probably a landmark for Don Gaspar de Portola when he explored the area in 1769.  Now it's tucked into a small park with a few plaques at its base, struggling to stay healthy.  

El Palo Alto.  That lifesaving pipe mists the top. 

All that's left of the fruit canning capital of the world. 

In October, I asked Steven if we could stop by Libby's Water Tank (#104) in Sunnyvale, while there for other errands.  It took a few circuitous turns, but we finally found the tank in the bank of a business park now occupied by Raytheon. It turns out Sunnyvale used to be the the fruit canning capital of the world. In 1922, Libby's was largest cannery in the world, and it was in Sunnyvale.  Fruit cocktail anyone?  And all that's left is this 150,000 gallon water tower, now a 25 tall fruit can, advertising fancy fruits for salad.  

Eichler open floor plan

In October, we also saw an Eichler house (#83), up for rent.  Eichler was a progressive developer who built homes for "common people" starting in 1949 and through the 1950s.  You could snap up an Eichler for $10,000 then.  Most are closed off ugly things from the street.  But then you step inside and discover  vaulted ceilings and a wall of windows looking into a private backyard.  There are a cluster of them in Palo Alto, and hundreds all over Silicon Valley.  

Egrets love the Bair Islands

Bair Island at dusk 

And now it's November.  On November 1st, we visited Bair Island preserve (#57), a marshland in Redwood City.  With a little work, you can ignore the noise of 101,  and the odor of another sewage plant, and take in 3,000 acres of wetlands.  Egrets, killdeer, plovers, shovelers, avocets and a lot of other shorebirds congregate here.  We watched an egret do a dance in the mud, stirring up the bugs for his grub.  I also filched a ridged clamshell of a type I'd never seen before.  It felt good to be out.  

21 sights viewed, 90 to go. 

Marshes at Baylands 

Muir Woods

 

For our anniversary in August, Steven and I decided to stay in a cabin the woods.  Well, the cabin was in the woods, but just behind the main drag of Mill Valley, a tony town in Marin County. Coffee, restaurants, and shops just a stroll away.  Not to mention the wine and champagne that graced our "cabin" room.

We had come north to see Muir Woods, home of the coast redwood, the tallest living thing on earth. These trees can reach 379 feet and live 2,000 years.  Muir Woods' tallest is 258 feet, about the height of a 23-story building.  I think you get a sense of the proportions of these trees when you see me standing next to one, above.  Impressed?  I was.   

These trees will outlast our record-setting forest fires this year, which were raging just north of us in Sonoma and Napa counties.  These trees actually depend on fire to clear out the duff  and many show the effects of past fires.  Air quality was generally poor in Mill Valley, which is right next to Muir Woods, but once we got the trees, the oxygen emitting redwoods made us breathe easy.  

We hope to come back in November or December, to see the Coho salmon returning to Redwood Creek.  I read that these salmon, and Steelhead trout, represent ancient strains of these fish, and are genetically unique.   

Mount Rainier in bloom

 

Now that we are plagued with wildfires all up and down the West Coast, with gray and orange skies, I am fondly reminiscing about my trip to the Pacific Northwest to visit family at the beginning of August.  A highlight (among several) was a trip to Mt. Rainier, and Paradise Lodge.  With this pandemic, everyone is visiting national parks.  Fortunately, we were smart enough to visit on a Monday, August 5th, when parking spots were still available at Paradise Valley, elevation 5,400 feet. I brought warm clothes, but it turned out to be exceptionally warm and bright. 

The meadows were in full bloom; a display of wildflowers so profuse I have seen nothing like it anywhere. My boys and I did some quick hiking  to Myrtle Falls, which has a 72 foot drop.  I've read it's the most photographed falls at the park, so we took some photos too.  

Two weeks later, on August 15th, Ben went back to the mountain with friends, this time to hike to 7200 feet.  Mind you, this is only halfway up this magnificent mountain.  Note the snow on the ground in August.  Ben enjoyed the hike, despite sunburn and the heels falling off his old hiking boots.    

Big Sur on the Pacific Coast Highway

Lunch at the world-famous Nepenthe, where you can forget all your troubles. 

My son Benjamin and I took a road trip down the iconic Pacific Coast Highway the first week in July. 

Benjamin did all the driving; I got to take in the views. We started in Mountain View and hugged the coast throughout Big Sur, from Carmel to San Simeon.  The highway curves along the Pacific, with hairpin turns worthy of all the car commercials filmed there. Along the way we passed the Henry Miller library, the Eselen Institute (hang out of hippies and Silicon Valley millionaires), and listened to loud Elephant Seals.  We were only forced back on to Interstate 5 after Huntington Beach and Malibu.    

  

Silicon Valley 111: La Honda and Woodside

The sun only penetrates in patches on the Heritage Grove Trail. 

Benjamin is visiting us this weekend, so he and I took a road trip along switchback roads to La Honda, a "census designated place" (CDP), population 900 or so, in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Ben was surprised such wilderness existed just 25 miles from Silicon Valley.  There are houses built at the bottom of ravines along the way, but flat land is hard to come by here, and the dominant feature are miles of coastal redwoods.  We burned off our In-N-Out Burgers on two trail loops at the Heritage Grove Trail, one quite steep. 

Most of the redwoods were scheduled to be logged, like this one, before becoming a park. 

After working up a sweat, we thought we'd get a drink at La Honda's famous watering hole, Apple Jack's, a bar housed in a 1879 blacksmith shop, that was a hangout for Ken Kesey, Neal Cassidy, Allen Ginsberg, and other beatniks.  Now it's closed.  We stopped to take a look, and happened on the bartender who had also stopped by.  He said he was one of the bartenders, then corrected himself, and said he was the last bartender.  Apparently, they'd laid off the other bartenders, due to Covid-19.  But they did hope to reopen soon.

Apple Jack's roadside bar, built 1879.  Due to reopen soon. 

So we continued on to Woodside, another CDP in the curve of the road.  Fortunately, Alice's Restaurant was open for business.  This is a hangout for bikers and car enthusiasts.  It also has a lot of outdoor seating, useful during a pandemic.  I ordered boysenberry pie; Ben ordered mud pie. They had Alice Restaurant masks for sale, but I declined that purchase.  We sat out back, amid picnic tables, with a view of a pond and marsh.

Alice's Restaurant, Woodside, with socially distanced line out front.

Ben used some of his calories burned on the trial toward the Mud Pie, which was ginormous.  I highly recommend Alice's Restaurant (not to be confused with Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant), should you be in this neck of the wilderness.

Enough mud pie for a small army. 

#23 and #105 in 111 Places in Silicon Valley That You Must Not Miss.

Silicon Valley 111: Atherton and Belmont

Can I see all 111 places?

After months of sheltering in place due to Covid-19, I was able to step inside a bookstore last weekend.  Yes, they only let eight people in the store at a time, and yes, I was wearing a mask.  But it restored for a minute the delight that is bookstore browsing.  I was in Books Inc. on Castro Street in Mountain View when I spied 111 Places in Silicon Valley That You Must Not Miss.  I had to have it.  And now I have decided to try and see all 111 places (just don't tell Steven).  

Atherton's major park, Holbrook-Palmer.
The water tower was built in 1883. 

The book lists adventures alphabetically by town, so we started with Atherton, just north of Palo Alto. Atherton is the second most affluent zip code in America. Six square miles of oak-lined streets inhabited by the likes of  Sheryl Sandberg, Eric Schmidt and Meg Whitman. The houses are not incredibly extravagant but the setting is idyllic (and oh, houses here start at $2.7 million). We went to the central park, donated by Ms. Olive Holbrook-Palmer in 1958.  This is a classy and historic park, with Mr. Holbrook's carriage house (built 1897) just behind an 1883 water tower.  Not to mention an art studio, preschool, tennis courts, trails, playgrounds, and fountains.  Well done, Atherton.  

Water Dog Lake, Belmont. Note dog in water. 

Now on to Belmont.  Belmont is just a little further north of Atherton, but not so affluent.  Nonetheless, it is the headquarters of Oracle and Safeway.  (How 'bout that for a combination?)  It also has a "mid-century modern" feel to it.  Lots of that '50s architecture and signage that I find Mayberry nostalgic. Our goal was to visit Water Dog Lake, which is an open space with a reservoir in the center.  Water Dog Lake was indeed filled with dogs when we visited, but 111 Places  informs me "water dog" is actually a type of salamander. I saw none of these critters.    

Park rules require a mask.  It's around my neck.  

Now, we had planned on having lunch at another Belmont landmark, The Van's Restaurant. But sadly, it closed three weeks ago after 47 years of business. The owners decided to retire early due to the pandemic. The Van's occupies a 1915 building on top of a hill and served stuff like Southern fried sirloin steak draped in gravy.  But now we'll never taste that it.  Instead we had to settle for Classic 101 Burgers & Shakes, established 1956.  (Yummy curly fries!) 

Not quite The Van's but really good! 

The Van's Restaurant, a Belmont institution for 47 years, closed May 2020. 

Bay Area Reopens: Sauntering in Sausalito

Steve ponders the strangeness of life on a dock in Sausalito

The Bay Area is reopening bit by bit now that Covid-19 infections have slowed. We decided to see how reopening was taking shape north of us, so we took a day trip to Sausalito, the tony town perched on a steep cliff across the bay from downtown San Francisco.

The iconic Golden Gate Bridge, up close.

 We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to get to Sausalito, a treat all its own. A native Californian, Steven had never driven across the bridge, so now he can mark this off his bucket list.  You emerge from a tunnel and then you are on the bridge, with views of Alcatraz and Angel islands. When the bridge opened in 1937, it was the longest and tallest suspension bridge in the world.  It has a beautiful deep brick red color, darker than I expected when viewed up close.  You can also walk across it, but bring a wind breaker. 

A hardware store in downtown Sausalito. Even the prospector outside wears a mask. 

As we exited the bridge, Google maps decided we should take a circuitous route to downtown Sausalito, via vertiginous switchbacks. Houses are perched precariously on hillsides and many seem to have nearly vertical driveways. Roads are narrow and turns are sharp.  Residences deal with it for the views, which are, to put it mildly, spectacular.

Views from a downtown Sausalito park.

We fortunately parked on level ground in the downtown area, and stopped to eat at Lighthouse Coffee Shop, the first outdoor restaurant we saw (we really had to use their restroom.) But despite it being a rushed choice, and a little windy, it was quite tasty.  I watched a stream of cyclists pedal past as I had chicken apple sausage and scrambled eggs.

Then we strolled, stopping for ice cream while taking in the views. Stores were open, but you couldn't go inside.  Instead, tables with select merchandise were wedged into the entrance.  But we were still happy to shop.  I got a puzzle and t-shirt; Steven bought a baseball cap.  It felt good to support local merchants. 

Bay Area Reopens: San Jose Al Fresco

 

 This past Friday, June 5, 2020 was dubbed Al Fresco Friday.  After twelve weeks of take-out only, restaurants were given the nod in San Francisco, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties to offer table service outdoors.  The coronavirus doesn't spread as quickly outdoors. Of course, the wait staff all wear masks, and you're supposed to as well when not imbibing beverages and nibbling appetizers. It's a little loose, but most practice this social nicety and safety precaution.

New dining protocol.
No shared menus (scan the Q code and view it on your phone!) and masks at ready.

We ventured out this weekend to bolster the economy and frankly to enjoy someone's else's cooking.  We drove South to San Jose and its Santana Row. This is a stretch of newish blocks  (built in 2002) meant to look old, with vibrant 20th century architecture.  Apartments are piled on top of restaurants and shops, with a tree lined corridor between.  We parked (2 hours free!), grabbed our masks and hustled over to Ozuma Japanese restaurant. 

Steven reads the menu from his phone. Less germs that way.

Ozuma had installed plexiglass shields to extend their outdoor dining and maintain six feet social distancing. We were seated against a wall that is normally a corridor. Across the street I could see boarded up shops, recent evidence of protests against the death of George Floyd in police custody a week before.  A pandemic followed by protests and rioting across the nation makes for an unsettling first date out in three months.  But we persevered. I had the brussels sprout and garlic vinaigrette appetizer, followed by veggie don and a very nice beer. I watched masked pedestrians saunter past, out, at last, for a weekend night on the town.  Our waiter told us four restaurants in Santana Row had closed, unable to survive the pandemic shut down.

Almost a normal night out.

We strolled down the street as well, coming to a Mexican restaurant that had set up a DJ outdoors. Twentysomethings were dancing in the street, having a drink.  You could say they were a little foolish, what with a pandemic still on the loose, but you could feel the happiness rolling off them.  Life as is should or was, just for a little while. 

Mountain View Trader Joe's and coronavirus (with update)

UPDATE: Fast forward one year and two months. On June 15, 2021, the State of California lifted almost all COVID-19 restrictions. After over 600,000 deaths from the virus in the U.S., the virus has been beaten back with vaccinations and normal life resumes. Or does it? The weirdness and unreality of the start of the pandemic hit me all over again when I entered my local Trader Joe's on June 19, 2021, without a mask and discovered I WAS THE ONLY ONE NOT WEARING A MASK. I felt like a pioneer, an oddity, a minority. I am ready to burn my masks. Why do others persist in wearing them? Not vaccinated? Maybe, but I suspect the percentage would be small. Our son Samuel, lately of New York, observed this same oddity there. CBS News informs me masks provide security and anonymity. My theory is that it took a year to get used to masks and it became a habit; for some it will take time to get unused to them.

Going grocery shopping during this pandemic has become surreal.  The staff at Trader Joe's continue to be relentlessly cheery and the shelves (except for toilet paper), are well stocked.  But it is now a virus war zone.  It's socially acceptable to wear a mask and gloves, and since I had managed to sew a mask for myself recently, I brought it along.  Then I stood in a line that snaked around the corner, carefully maintaining a distance of six feet or more from the stranger near me.  We all respectfully maintained that distance and no one talked.  This was serious business.   I recently saw a great billboard that said, "Standing Together Six Feet Apart" that pretty much sums up the collective cooperation this nation is taking toward "flattening the curve" of infection.

There's a line for Trader Joe's now, in six feet increments.

So I was thinking about that as we slowly advanced in our line.  Meanwhile, a Trader Joe's employee romped around in an avocado costume (not pictured) at a safe distance, telling us to enjoy the sunshine, and by the way, we couldn't bring in our own bags.  But not to worry, TJ's would provide paper bags for free.  When I got to the front of the line, the nice Trader Joe's employee had already disinfected my cart.  As one shopper leaves, another can enter.

Taking no chances - personal bags not allowed. 

I like to linger in Trader Joe's.  I like to discover their new treat of the week.  Not today.  I felt I had to grab and go and not touch too much.  I also overbought, but that's a symptom we all have during this pandemic.  I also tried to practice "social distance" like the good citizen I am.  And not be too unsettled.  But I was and am. 

Cartoon affixed outside my local Trader Joe's 

Week 3 of pandemic measures concludes.  My thanks to the dedicated staff at Trader Joe's who keep me well fed while I, and everyone else, wait this out.

Update: Trader Joe line monitoring is now a thing.  See WSJ's June 13th article here.

Coronavirus and bamboo flatware and everything else

My new portable flatware, complete with fabric case.

What does bamboo cutlery have to do with the novel coronavirus Covid-19 that is sweeping the world?  Now that confirmed cases have topped 100,000, everyone is getting anxious to prevent its spread.  This includes my employer, who now provides us with plastic utensils wrapped in more plastic. I miss our heavy duty silverware that you could put in the dishwasher.  While I'm not completely clear how grabbing a plastic bag of plastic utensils spreads less germs than grabbing metal silverware, we are all trying to do our part.  So my solution was to order up some eco-friendly bamboo flatware that I just share with me.

Lest you think I'm making light of this yet undeclared pandemic, I am not. Travel is limited. I may have to work remotely from home soon. Our eldest now has to take classes at his community college virtually. No in-person classes.  (Stanford, University of Washington, and many other colleges have done the same. My nephew will present his Master's thesis online.) Steven's much anticipated Endo conference has been cancelled. And the whole of Italy has just been quarantined.

Addendum: Steven and I are now on week two of working remotely, part of the global effort to "social distance" now that confirmed cases have reached 330,000, as of 3/22/2020.  The State of California instituted "shelter in place"on St. Patrick's Day last week.  We are home and healthy (so far).

San Franscisco MOMA

SF's Museum of Modern Art has some weird stuff - the old bricks with lead laid in a corner, the paintings I could have improved upon in elementary school - but it also has some cool stuff in a cool building.  There is the original and iconic love sculpture just outside the 5 Cafe on the fifth floor.  There is the modern day Alexander the Great hip hop portrait, complete with a San Diego Padres jacket,  and there is The Living Wall, a 150' wide x 30'  high wall of  plants happily growing vertically. 

...a modern Alexander the Great, a 2005 painting by Kehinde Wiley  

The Living Wall sets off the sculpture garden

East Bay turkeys - Coyote Hills

Wild Turkeys at Coyote Hills East Bay Regional Park

Here's how to see wild turkeys in the Bay area.  Drive past Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park on to the Dumbarton Bay bridge ($6 toll!).  Enjoy the mud flats and salt evaporation ponds on the way to Fremont.  As you exit the bridge, take a right to the Coyote Hills regional park.  Opened in 1968, it is 1,274 acres of rolling hills, marshes, and SF Bay views.  You can park free outside and hike in a couple miles or you can drive to the Visitor's Center and pay the parking fee.  Unless you are visiting on January 25, 2020 at about 3 p.m., when you are told that someone has made off with the parking meter that very morning, and the parking guard is gone.  (Your fee may vary.) Look around the visitor's center and learn about the Tuibun tribe that lived there 2,400 years ago.   Stroll the nectar garden, then take a walk toward the Bay.  And then, if you are lucky, a rafter of turkeys will run past you.  A dozen big wild turkeys.  You have to see it to believe it.

Steven looking out toward SF Bay and the salt evaporation ponds built in the mid 19th C

Coyote Hills also has an extensive marsh, with lots of trails.  We went on the Muskrat Trail, where we did in fact, see a muskrat.