A local Pootle.
This is a pootle that begins on the Stevens Creek Trail in the middle of the Santa Clara Valley/Silicon Valley area. A bike trail is being(slowly) built from the hills to the bay along the seasonal creek. It is a pleasant ride with lots of shade and greenery.
The trail is connected to the surrounding areas with various bridges over the creek.
Well, we don't have an Area 51(at least not that we know of!), but we do have Moffet Field which contains the NASA/Ames Research Center. This is one end of the huge wind tunnel there, the largest in the world.
Moffet Field also has Hangar One, built to house dirigibles in the '30s and '40s. This thing covers the area of ten football fields and can even have its own weather inside. Because of its huge, flat, undisturbed space, the TV show Mythbusters has used it for several of its episodes. It can be overwhelming to stand inside of this thing.
Commuter and freight trains(always late at night, it seems) run on these tracks. Some of us will be riding this train to SF next month for the FolderFest. Should be fun!
Off the trail now - this high tech area has sidewalks that are great for pootling - shady, curvy, inviting and low speed.
This is the only speed indicator I've ever found that actually registered me on my bike. Blazing/pootling along at 10mph, one handed whilst pointing the camera!
Google is everywhere here. To the best of my knowledge this is the main campus of the Googleplex, but they occupy many buildings in the area. Merely the beginning of their plans for world domination I suppose, one building at a time. Yahooplex, eBayplex and a multitude of others are not too far away.
Cool! I have no idea what these things are, but they sure are interesting. Three wheels, obviously electric, parked in the Google lot. Amazingly enough they have their own recharge stations. Let's see more of this!
Stevens Creek Trail runs all the way to the Shoreline Recreation Area on the bay. There is an enclosed lagoon of sorts that is used for sailing and windsurfing. A nice spot really. It’s windy so it also used to be known as a kite flying location. But the kites got too big and too high and apparently freaked out the pilots on their approach to the Palo Alto airport which is just upwind from here.
The twin peaks in the distance are part of the canvas roof over the Shoreline Amphitheater. It is built on the site of a former landfill. When first opened there were instances of escaping methane gas being ignited by smokers during the concerts. A personal light show!
