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Country just south of Silicon Valley
A very fertile valley. I imagine Silicone Valley looked like this before the technology boom. This was just one of those plain old travel days through the Bay area (Berkley, Oakland,etc.) down through the cities and towns south of the Bay and on to Carmel-by-the-Sea.
At times the traffic moved well, while at others the five lanes of traffic on the freeway turned into a parking lot; this was Sunday for goodness sake. Sometimes the traffic would slow to a crawl and I thought there must be an accident ahead, but then the cars would get back to freeway speeds and there was nothing to be seen that might have caused the slowdown. A bit of chaos theory in real life I guess.
The oil in the RAV4 was down a bit so I decided to top it up before leaving San Rafael. I went looking for something like a NAPA car parts supplier, but couldn’t easily find one nearby so I stopped into a Toscalito Tire and Automotive place (sort of like Fountain Tire) to buy a quart of oil. The manager up front said they didn’t sell that sort of thing and then told me where I could find a place that did. As I was leaving he stopped me and asked how much I needed. I told him I needed only about half a pint. He thought for a second and then said, “Look, we don’t normally do this sort of thing, but pull around to the side bay there and let’s see if we can help you out.”
I pulled around and a mechanic came out with a quart of the proper synthetic oil and topped the car up for me. I went inside to pay and the manager told me to never mind paying for the oil and that he was glad to help. I gave $5 to the mechanic for helping me and went on my way.
I bother to mention this because it is a good indication of the tremendous friendliness and help that I have experience during the whole trip so far. Even last night checking in to the Embassy Suites, the evening manager gave me a discount and didn’t charge me for the use of the internet (normally $10 - believe it or not).
On the road,.once I got past the heavily populated areas, the traffic moved well. As I passed Cupertino I thought I might go in and find the Apple offices, but decided I better get to my destination so I could get settled in decent time. However, I did turn off the freeway and took a short 15 minute loop on secondary roads to get a feel for the place. it was beautiful countryside with rolling hills, interspersed with farms and multi-million dollar homes. Some of the homes had small vineyards. I wonder if they make their own wine?
About 30 miles south of Cupertino the traffic on the other side of the freeway coming into the Bay area started to pack up until it was almost at a standstill. This slow moving parking lot of two lane traffic went on for 20 miles or so. I couldn’t believe it. When I made the turnoff onto the #1 the traffic built up again for another 10 miles. I found out later that this was the norm every weekend, but this Sunday was probably worse because it was Mothers Day. I’ll bet some of those folk heading north didn’t get home until midnight. Not my idea of a good day out. I wonder how long we have until holiday weekends look like this on the freeway to Banff?
I found a very quaint but expensive B&B right in the centre of Carmel. However, I could walk to all the galleries and the beach which was nice.
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