Circle the Bay: December 2018

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Day 30: Mud Slough to Tasman Station

Near the Mouth of Coyote Creek

Day 30: Mud Slough to Tasman Station
(Fremont to San Jose)

Circle The Bay Part 3

December 6th 2018

8.8 miles in 1 hrs 15 mins

(Total: 323.4 miles in 73 hrs 26 mins)

This ride was for the most part along the last stretch of Coyote Creek (which should be called Coyote River) before its mouth at the southeast end of the bay. There is a serious amount of flood engineering along this corridor, because the creek drains most everything south of it to Morgan Hill. Unlike the creeks of eastern and western bayshore, it has many more miles of drainage due to arrangement of the north/south mountain ridges between which the bay occupies the drowned valley between them.

I circumnavigated the South Bay today and it was fun. Caltrain to the city, bike the Embarcadero to BART, BART all the way to the new Warm Springs terminus, and then bike the gap in transit to the Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority light rail. Which takes me back to Caltrain...

Found the metric allen wrenches to adjust my bike seat

Bay Trail Parking Lot by Mud Slough

Development always underway

Coyote Creek Flood Mitigation Embankment, Upstream View

Coyote Creek Flood Mitigation Embankment, Downstream View

Alternate Bay Trail Route for Cyclists

Thursday, December 6, 2018

Day 29: Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge to Mud Slough

Mud Slough

Day 29: Don Edwards
San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge to Mud Slough
(Newark to Fremont)

Circle The Bay Part 3

December 1st 2018

8.9 miles in 1 hrs 2 mins

(Total: 314.6 miles in 72 hrs 11 mins)

I had a friend who worked for Cargill as a software developer, at one time the largest private corporation in the USA. They still own and manage a lot of the bay's wetlands, but they did work out a deal with the federal government to restore a lot of their previous evaporation ponds as well.

He's probably retired by now. His work for Cargill was very process driven business software development, the kind I got a minor in (systems analysis), but then avoided completely by the scientific programming career I bootstrapped at Honeywell.

It's not that I don't like business, I do. I even like doing my own double-entry bookkeeping in a spreadsheet of my own design. I guess the difference is that if I'm programming for someone else I'd rather do the science and engineering part of making money. If I'm programming to count the money I'd rather it be my own money.

My mind is turning to Silicon Valley as I approach the southern end of the bay. This section ended right on the bayshore side of I-880, right across the freeway from the huge Tesla factory. I will try to keep my eye on the wonder of the bay and not get too distracted by the castles built on silicon off to my left.