Moss at Chitactac-Adams County Park
Stanford University with a Flip Phone
That is pay phone, in a stone hall, at Stanford University. I wonder how often it is used these days. Photo taken by a flip phone of the kind that came along to make pay phones far harder to find starting several years ago.
Santa Clara Murals
There are several murals at a housing development being built in the city of Santa Clara at the San Jose border next to Valley Fair Mall. These murals are by Maxfield Bala Creative mural company (https://www.maxfieldbala.com/).
I love to walk around in bare feet. And I am use to seeing signs that say you must have shoes to enter a place. This, however, is the first sign I have seen that says you must have bare feet. It is on the side of the painted silo.
Bedrock Mortars
Bedrock mortars at Chitactac-Adams Heritage County Park. People used these to grind foods for thousands of years here as this particular area was inhabited for at least 3,000 years and probably longer. The mortars are right there to appreciate on a walk around the park. There are so many in various spots. I enjoy thinking about these, and the people who used them, and their descendants living in the Silicon Valley and other places today.
SLAC – Longest Linear Accelerator
Looking down the hall of the 2 mile long straight building at Stanford’s linear accelerator. Straight, not level. The guide said if it was level it would follow the Earth’s curve and at 2 miles long it would then be about 12 inches off of straight at the end. This building was designed to be straight because a couple of stories below ground, under this support equipment that the building is housing, is a long tube that is designed to accelerate particles very near the speed of light. And those particles go straight. You don’t get too many opportunities to look down so perfect an example of a diminishing perspective through distance.
This is the outside of the building, looking down the exact same stretch as seen in the inside photo above it. You can see highway 280 going over the linear accelerator as a bridge not too far ahead in the photo.
Our tour guide took us to a newer building added down the end of the accelerator where x-rays generated by the accelerated particles are used for modern research. The accelerator was running throughout this whole visit, and does so through most hours of most days of the year. And so, behind the tour guide in the above photo, here a few stories under ground, x-rays are flying through the labs in a horizontal tube that I pointed out with the added blue arrow. These x-rays are used in the various experiments going on in the numerous rooms of SLAC.
There is something wonderful about humans working together on huge ambitious projects to advance our understanding of the universe. And it is pretty great to get to look at these projects and to consider what they do and how they do it.
Coming back up to the surface, surrounded by California.
Flip Phone Pix
Here are some fun with a flip phone photos from in and around San Jose. These photos have no added filter effects; this is just how cell phone photos use to look. They are less than 2 megapixels and sometimes look a little like computer generated paintings and sometimes like incredibly detailed versions of foggy dreams.
Bathroom in downtown Santa Cruz food court.
Twin Lakes beach in Santa Cruz.
Cottonwood Lake in Hellyer County Park in San Jose.
A street sign in San Jose.
Bobblehead race at the A’s game in Oakland.
Bubbles in the air from a vendor at the Newark Days festival in Newark.
Payphone at a Camp Site
Payphone at Memorial Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
A Well Used Post
So many signs have been here.
This post in downtown Santa Cruz.
Forbes Mill on the Los Gatos Creek Trail
An Ohlone Village Mural
Mural along the Los Gatos Creek Trail under East Main Street in Los Gatos.