Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland
Serpentine
What happens when you start with mantle rock, that bendable hot semi-fluid-like rock that is miles below the surface and that the Earth’s crust floats on top of, and get it to come up a bit after mixing with ocean water and the heat induced chemical reactions that follow? You get a beautiful rock called serpentine that is usually miles deep but now makes up significant portions of the US west coast having been scraped off the ocean plates that sank below the US west coast in the last 200 million years.
A few interesting facts about this rock. It is awesome that it is the Earth’s mantle come up to the surface where we can touch it! It is the state rock of California. It can be mined for talc or asbestos. Did I mention it comes from miles below the surface? It is pretty. It is found where rocks from deep in, and below, the ocean have come to the surface through strong geologic events. The chemicals of the rock make it toxic to most plants and trees. Many California native plants have adapted to survive amongst the rock. You can see, for example, the Toyon bush (also known as California holly or Christmas berry) growing on the serpentine in the top photo.
Knowing that most trees and plants can not grow on serpentine rock, a previous owner of this land, now a part of the Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge, planted agave plants to add some garden interest where he hoped to build a house. While the agave was not growing naturally in this particular area, it is one of the native plants that had adapted to grow among serpentine rocks in California. Today, in this national refuge, the planted agave continues to grow.
Santa Cruz – sand at Twin Lakes State Beach
Grand View Restaurant
Looking over San Jose, a little ways up the side of Mt. Hamilton, is a wonderful restaurant with a mighty Grand View of our city and valley. The food, the experience, the view, the smells of nature, and the smells of everyone’s food as it goes by, the time to contemplate the world before us, the room and the beauty for ones mind to expand within… wow; presence on that patio is an amazing opportunity. And after a wonderful experience, you may even take the chance to practice night photography after an evening dinner on that patio. While this photo is more narrowly cropped, from the Grand View restaurant you will see the entire Silicon Valley.
From just south of San Jose border
The 2 Spot
Not far from San Jose in Vasona County Park, there is this special train, “The 2 Spot.” This steam powered train was built in 1905. Yeah, over 100 years ago. Number 2, a one third scale steam train, began running in Venice Beach, California. After several years of service, it eventually found itself in a junk yard where local railroad worker Billy Jones found it in San Francisco bound for a scrap yard in 1939. He purchased it, restored it, and ran it for free for children to ride on Sundays around his Los Gatos farm for the rest of his life.
After his passing in 1968, friends and neighbors created a non profit to move it and keep it going at nearby Vasona Park where it continues to run today. It is pretty cool to ride this train and kids love it. The attraction to the tracks is great and so there are now five trains working to help spread the work load. Number 2 comes out mostly on weekends during the summer months. All of the trains are interesting so it is a treat to see and ride any of the four that are there to pull visitors for only $3 a ride.
I like to get excited about all of the trains but find it especially exciting to ride number 2, this bit of history from 1905 that has carried children and adults for decades. I love when it chugs hard to move up the gradient of the park. Walt Disney heard of this train and visited Billy Jones before Disneyland was a reality. They became friends. The logo, still used today, for the Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad was designed by a Disney animator. Billy himself was there at the opening of Disneyland to run their train on July of 1955.
It’s a special ride, for sure.
Friendly Plaza, Monterey
Monterey is a little over an hour by car and well worth the drive, which is itself a pleasure. For those interested in San Jose history, it is impossible not to get excited about several of our nearby cities that are as wound up in the history of California.
Monterey is one of those important cities in our California history. Like San Jose, this is a city that one could spend a lifetime visiting, learning about, and photographing with great satisfaction.
Pictured above is Colton Hall in the Friendly Plaza. In this building the California Constitution was written in 1849. It stated that San Jose would be the state capitol, was written in English and Spanish as a bilingual constitution, and led to California becaming the 31st state in 1850.
500 seeds comprising four species of trees were sent in orbit around the moon with Apollo 14 in 1971. When they returned, some of what became known as Moon Trees were planted alongside similar trees for research, some were given to states or countries as gifts. In 1976, many were given to cities and states with appropriate climates for the various tree seedlings in order to celebrate the bicentennial of the USA. The Moon Tree pictured above is one of these 1976 trees. In the bay area, the nearest two Moon Trees are in Monterey and in Berkeley. For comparison of two very different earth species, the human species woman visiting the Monterey Moon Tree in the photo above was born in 1976 when the Coast Redwood species Moon Tree next to her was planted.
One interesting thing about bronze statues is that you can always tell where people are drawn to touch them most by the clearing of any natural tarnishing. For this bear, it is clearly the teeth that people are drawn to touch. It took my youngest child all of seconds before placing a foot in the bear’s teeth and asking me to take a picture.
Across the street from the Friendly Plaza is the Montery Museum of Art. Below are a few of the treasures located there.
Monterey and Monterey Bay are incredible locations for discovery. The factors that brought people here for thousands of years continue to influence the lives of the people and continue to draw me to learn and discover more with great appreciation.
28 County Parks – part 5 of 5
Alviso Marina County Park
Ed Levin County Park
Penitencia Creek County Park
Joseph D. Grant County Park
Hellyer County Park
Martial Cottle County Park
Wow. That was all 28 Santa Clara County Parks. That was a great adventure for us. We saw so much wildlife, so many reservoirs supporting our drinking water, played and explored in some of our favorite places, found new places, and learned much. In fact, I continue to learn as I research the parks we visited and things we read, saw, or heard from park rangers and other visitors.
Visiting them all, one after the other, was an arbitrary challenge I came up with… And it turned out wonderfully… And it became a sweet and memorable family experience.
28 County Parks – part 4 of 5
Sanborn County Park
Upper Stevens Creek County Park
Stevens Creek County Park
Rancho San Antonio County Park
Sunnyvale Baylands County Park
28 County Parks – part 3 of 5
Almaden Quicksilver County Park
Los Gatos Creek County Park
Vasona County Park
Lexington County Park
Villa Montalvo County Park
