Blogs from San Jose, California, United States, North America - page 2

Goodbye Yosemite, Hello San Jose Today we said goodbye to Yosemite. Yosemite was great but crowded with people. There were cars at every pullout, walkers and bicyclists all through the valley and huge buses giving tours everywhere we went. It was hard to find the quieter places, but we did it. No mountain lion was ever found. We did learn today that the emergency we saw the responders for yesterday was a climber that was fatally hit by a rock while climbing the mountain. We also heard of a hiker who was washed over one of the waterfalls on Saturday, but he has not been located. It is beautiful in this park but dangers are also very present. We were up fairly early, packed, ate our continental breakfast we purchased last night and were on our ... read more

As I promised, here's a little more about the Palo Alto, the cement tanker commissioned during WWI during the steel shortage, which was completed too late to enter the war. Seeing as how it lacked a purpose in peacetime, it was sold to an entertainment company, which beached it along the California coast and turned it into a resort. During its glory days, the Palo Alto featured a boardwalk, a fine restaurant, and a dance hall. Unfortunately, the gaiety was short-lived; the Great Depression squished any chance the resort had at profitability. It was sold to the state and turned into an extension of the wooden fishing pier. Now it is too dangerous to go out on and has become a habitat for wildlife. We woke to the sound of the waves crashing on the shoreline. ... read more

Silicon Valley For those who like technology, Silicon Valley is a place of myth, the modern equivalent of the western Sierra in 1849. This cluster of cities between Palo Alto and San Jose has an amazing concentration of incredibly smart engineers, along with adventurous investors. Their constant interactions and competition create ideas, products, and companies that revolutionize how people use computers, the internet, and modern life. People here create things that change the world. Local boosters like to claim that this environment only exists in this one small area. In reality, it also exists in other parts of the country (Boston MA, Seattle WA, Austin TX) but no... read more

December in San Jose.. Only a couple of days until i leave... read more

I finally got off the Greyhound in California making the long trek from the East Coast to the West Coast while meandering through the South, parts of the Midwest, Southwest and the Colorado Rockies. My Western leg included a ride through Arizona, Nevada and California from the Southern region all the way up to San Jose in the heart of Silicon Valley where I got off. After arriving at the downtown San Jose bus terminal at 6am on Sunday morning, there was a remarkable shift in lifestyle as I moved from a seat in a Greyhound bus to a seat in a nearby Starbucks. This was followed by a seat in my aunt Michelle's sporty red convertible with which she picked me up from Starbucks and took me to her beautifully remodeled home. The beauty and ... read more