Evening Walk Down 2nd Street
A Bite of Wyoming – a San Jose Restaurant
Yes, the food is good at A Bite of Wyoming. The green salsa in the squeeze bottles is also excellent. But for me, it is the memory of eating here with my Nana and Tata as a kid that makes it so wonderful. I take pictures for this blog in an attempt to capture some of the beauty that is everywhere here in San Jose and the surrounding area. But some of the beauty found anywehere by people comes from the memories that have aged well and continue to be appreciated. This restaurant represents some of those memories for me. It is also pretty neat to show my children their first jackelope, the very same that was my first jackelope, as they sit in a booth I sat in when I was their ages.
4th Street Mural
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
28 County Parks – part 2 of 5
Mount Madonna County Park
Chitactac-Adams County Park
Uvas Reservoir County Park
Uvas Canyon County Park
Chesbro Reservoir County Park
Calero County Park
28 County Parks – part 1 of 5
The arbitrary mission I assigned myself was to pack lunches, snacks, water, and kids into a car and visit, or revisit, each of the 28 Santa Clara County Parks within a few days. I don’t know how arbitrary missions and the accomplishment of them can be so satisfying, but it was a wonderful adventure.
Santa Teresa County Park
Coyote Creek County Park
Motorcycle County Park
Field Sports County Park
Anderson Lake County Park
Coyote Lake Harvey Bear County Park
West Santa Clara St. Mural
I could stare at this downtown San Jose mural every day. I am enamored with this. I adore it. Created by San Jose artist Lacey Bryant.
I love the art of it, the movies my mind creates inspired by it, the fantasy, the San Jose references within the work, the flow of emotions and thoughts I come to when staring at it.
Big Basin Redwoods State Park
The first California State Park, it opened in 1902 to protect old growth forest in the Santa Cruz Mountains. In the beginning it was known as California Redwood Park and changed its name to Big Basin Redwoods State Park a few decades later.
Many of the old growth redwood trees here are over 1,000 years old. Wow!
Much of the credit for the creation of the first California State Park goes to a San Jose photographer named Andrew P. Hill. All of these years I had heard of Andrew Hill high school in San Jose and never thought to ask who he was. Now I know. Andrew Hill was amazed at the sight of the old redwood trees, tallest trees on earth and able to live over 2,000 years. Through his photography and connections, he supported the preservation of these special forests. He led excursions of influential people to the trees that led to the funding and legislation that secured our first state park. Today, there is approximately 3% of the old growth redwood forests remaining in California and most of that is now on protected state public lands.
The park is beautiful. The trees are beautiful. The guided walk we went on added so much to the entire experience. I found myself trying to identify trees afterwards and seeing new things around me as I contemplated the life cycles of the rain forest. Also cool, I now know what a huckleberry is and what it tastes like.