Fremont Farmer's Market & Biking

We went to the local Farmer's Market this weekend. There are a lot of these around the Bay Area - usually on Saturday mornings - and they are pretty easy to find by looking online. The produce (and bread!) are wonderfully fresh, tasty, and inexpensive (especially if you hit the last hour, when they start reducing prices).

The Fremont Farmer's Market is right at the Amtrak train depot - plenty of free parking, fairly small, but friendly!





Sunday called for bike riding!

Fremont has a nice greenbelt - it goes along either side of a canal that leads to the bay. It is a part of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Program. You can download a nice PDF map from here, or you can pick up one along the path.



Saw some nice flowers along the way. This is similar to a shrub w/ cream colored flowers (fabulous scent) in Palo Alto (by the Lucy Stern theatre), and to one with rose-tinted flowers (in other parts of the Bay Area as well as in Costa Rica) - but no scent to speak of.



Also saw some interesting birds and fish - Snowy Egrets, carp, trout, even dogs :). Here is a Great Blue Heron.



Stats - just over 10 miles, just over 1 hour.
Kept seeing "reduce speed" signs, so, knowing they were talking about me, I kept sloooowwwwiiiinngg dooooowwwwn.

Note to self - always *start* your bike ride *into* the wind...



Another interesting bike route for Sundays is the Cañada road in San Mateo County - each Sunday, about 4 miles of Cañada road is closed to cars, and open to bikes and walks.

Water Skiing California Foothills

We went water skiing today! We spent yesterday afternoon making sure the boat was ready to take out, then got everybody together for a day-trip. We were talking about how long it has been (waaay too long), and I realized that I had not been water skiing in over TWENTY (yes, 20) YEARS! That is just stupid. Well, so I finally did it again :).

We started off the day by getting groceries (how mundane - but necessary), and then gas (now we *need* the shock of cold water), and left town with a full load by 10:30.



We headed out Highway 20 East (towards Grass Valley); about 20 miles outside of Marysville is Englebright Lake - aka "The Narrows." It is a narrow, deep, cold lake-from-dam on the Yuba River. Upriver is Bullards Bar, and all is fed by snow-melt. Now days, the route is pretty well marked (with actual signs!). The downside is that now there is a fee - a whole $4 per day (day use and boat launch - self-registered). We especially like Englebright because the campsites (and picnic sites) are all boat-access-only. No cars can get near you. Hikers don't even come by.



We had a very easy time of it - it was not crowded at *all* - and it is still the middle of summer (although some of the schools started this week), but it is also a weekday. But usually, the lake is crowded, and all the normal picnic sites are taken by the weekend.



You can see just how amazing the water is - pure glass!





We went all the way up to the "no wake" area, farthest from the dam. We pulled in and checked out several campsites along the way, but had an opportunity to be picky ;D. Ended up at "Missouri Bar."



We got settled in, had some lunch, then went out to SKI!

It still works! Had to start over again with 2 skis - no slalom for me just yet...



And the glory didn't last all that long either. Here is the splash before the fall :)



Here's Karl's turn:



And Rachel getting ready to hit that *cold* water:



We all had to rest up after this:



Then we went exploring farther upriver.



We left the marina by 7:30, and caught a nice sunset on the way home. All in all, a *very* nice day!

San Francisco Bay Area - Amtrak to central valley

Yesterday, I took Amtrak from Fremont to Marysville (in the central valley of California). I did everything as last-minute as I think is possible :D. I looked up the schedule and fare for the Capitol Corridor (You can buy your ticket for the train and bus online - to get AAA discount, buy 3 days in advance. Javascript is required - turn it on first, or it dumps you to "failed script" page). I ended up going to the Fremont station without buying a ticket first. Usually, you can buy a ticket there, but on Sundays the building is locked up - and the machine is inside.
So, I just bought the ticket (including the bus transfer) from the conductor on the train. I thought I would need cash, but it turns out they will do a credit card right there.
The train came right on time. All the conductors were very friendly, and answered all my questions. If you buy a ticket in advance, then miss your train or bus, you can just take another one - no problem. There is no extra charge for buying on the train vs buying in advance (unless you qualify for a discount and buy several days in advance); there is no charge for using a ticket on a later train. For the Capitol Corridor, there is no extra charge for bringing a bicycle on (and it doesn't need to be boxed). You don't need a reservation for either yourself or the bike on either the train or the bus. Note that other lines have different rules.

I went upstairs and watched the countryside. Here is a small reservoir we passed when leaving Fremont.


You can also take the train (or BART) to the Oakland Coliseum - it looks like there was a game getting ready to start - plenty of people standing in line waiting to enter...


The train goes right along the Bay, past Jack London Square.
Then it heads into the central valley, through farmland and along the hills.






We pulled into Davis - that was nice. I hadn't been back to Davis in *years!* There were all kinds of new buildings, and these were only the ones I could see from the train! The station has a nice mosaic bench.

Then we got to the Sacramento station - end of the line for now. They are talking about extending the train to Reno, or at least Lake Tahoe. The Sacramento station is right off I-5, just South of Richards Blvd. We pulled in right on time. According to the schedule, I had a whole 5 minutes to get from the train to the bus - yikes! So I was waiting at the door, had used the bathroom, and quickly found the bus. Well, we sat there until 1:15 (schedule said we would leave at 1:00). So I didn't have to worry. It was also a good thing that I had purchased the bus transfer on the train, because a couple of people had to go to the building to buy their bus tickets - you couldn't buy them from the bus driver.

So, even though we left "late," we got to Marysville exactly on time - 2:00. Nice!
I took a couple of minutes to ask the bus driver some more questions :). He has never had a problem fitting bikes in the bus - no reservation required for bikes or people (nice to hear this from the bus driver, since he's who really matters). But, I didn't find out how to buy a ticket *from* Marysville.

Karl was waiting for me - he had actually followed the bus for a couple of blocks, so no waiting!

Had a nice get-together that night - captured 3 of the 4 siblings :)

San Francisco Bay Area - Santa Cruz & Big Basin

Yesterday, we took a nice little drive. We left the East Bay before 10:00 (missed the car pool advantage, but also missed most of the traffic), and headed South on 880, curved around the bottom of the bay, and headed up Hwy 17 to Santa Cruz.

We spent about an hour in Santa Cruz - parked near the boardwalk (all-day parking is $5, meters are 25c/10 minutes), and walked around for 20 minutes - 2 quarters :). It was a typical foggy, marine-layer August day on the coast. Many people were in shorts and coats. Didn't see anyone swimming or surfing, but it was a weekday, and perhaps the surfers would come out with the sun later.








We drove back to downtown and got sandwiches for later, then headed down Hwy 9 towards Big Basin Redwoods State Park. We got stuck in a bind when the road signs and traffic didn't cooperate - some nice fellow honked and nearly side-swiped us. We figured he was flirting with Mom. Isn't that what honking means?

We followed the winding way through Felton and Boulder Creek, then through more curves till we got to the park. The air got warmer, the sky got clearer, and the trees got bigger! It was a bit after 1:00 when we got there, so we had our lunch on a picnic table while we people-watched. A man and his 3-year old son shared their table with an Asian tourist couple - the son explained a lot about the park, his plans, and life in general. After lunch, Mom read and napped in the car, and Dad and I went on a hike - about an hour and a half. It wasn't too crowded; we passed maybe 4 other families on the way.













We had a number of choices for our return trip - we decided to drive back through Boulder Creek, then go past Skyline to Saratoga, Hwy 85 North to 101, then the Dumbarton Bridge back to the East Bay. We were back by 5:00 - a nice relaxing day!

We could have left the park the other direction, and skipped Boulder Creek. We could also have taken Skyline North along the ridge of the Santa Cruz mountains, then taken Page Mill Road and Oregon Expressway through Palo Alto to 101. But by this time we were pretty tired, and more curves and narrow roads didn't seem worth it. The drive and views are fabulous though - especially in a convertible :).



If you want another nice drive, take 280 North to Hwy 84 West, then Skyline Blvd North to 92. Then take 92 East back to 280. If you go this direction, you can stop at most of the best vista points on Skyline (difficult or illegal to turn left into a vista point on this road).

San Francisco Bay Area

We now live in the San Francisco Bay Area. We will be moving away in a few months, so it makes sense to treat this remaining time as "slow travel," even though we've been here for a long time.

There are a lot of interesting things to do here - nearby mountains, beaches, and parks. The drives can be an activity of themselves, with beautiful scenery all around.

The larger cities in the area are San Jose and San Francisco. Both have museums, theatre, and music.

The Rest of the Road Trip

My folks continued on The Road Trip Around The Country. They continued to take pictures, and so I swiped a few to show here.

They continued from Tennessee to Massachusetts, up-state New York, Niagara Falls, Great Lakes, Michigan, Montana, Washington, and back South to California.

They got a fabulous shot of the Great Smoky Mountains:



Niagara Falls from the Canadian side:







Hiked a bit in the still-snowy Rockies:







They included a visit to Grandma and Grandpa Cyr's grave:



Aunt Mabel views Kalispell, Montana



On to Glacier National Park:





Stopped in Montana - sky, mountain lakes, and family:







They came home to a bounty of grapes (not the wrathful kind, either)!