Sonya's Blog - Day 308 - Silicon Valley and the Coast

Sonya’s Blog - Day 308 - April 25th - Silicon Valley and the Coast

Blake knows a guy, that went to high school with him, that lives in Los Altos. Blake had connected with him through linkedin and had made arrangements to meet up with him today. We are meeting at the Rosewood Hotel near Palo Alto, which is just minutes away from Stanford University. We were meeting at noon and needed about an hour to get there, so we left at 10:30 to give ourselves a good buffer.

We had to go through San Francisco, in order to get on the 280 to get to Palo Alto, so that was the worst part of our drive. Once we were through the city, it was clear sailing with nice views of the Santa Cruz Mountains. We got to the hotel, with about 20 minutes to spare, so that is a huge accomplishment for us.

The hotel was very posh! We met up with Sanjeev and then went out to the balcony for some drinks and appetizers. It had a nice view of the Santa Cruz Mountains, plus the sun was shining and the balcony was protected from the wind, so we were very relaxed. Blake and Sanjeev caught up with what happened in each of their lives since they left high school, which was quite a bit of ground to cover. We chatted for just over an hour and then Sanjeev had to run back to work.

We then went to Stanford to have a look around. It is a beautiful campus. We didn’t have a lot of time, so we just went to see the Main Quadrangle, more commonly referred to as the Main Quad. This is the oldest part of the University and has spectacular architecture. We popped into the church to have a look and took a few pictures of Memorial Court and the gardens. We would have liked to check out the museum, as well, but it was after 2 and we wanted to get out of the area before the traffic started to get bad.

Memorial Court:

The non-demnominational church at Stanford:

We were not heading straight back to San Francisco, we were going to Santa Cruz and taking the coastal drive back. We just needed to get out of the populated areas prior to 4 and it was about an hours drive from where we were. We made it to Santa Cruz in just over an hour and then set out on our coastal drive.

It was very pretty. We pulled over at a small beach to have a walk and watch the kitesurfing. There were some big waves and some of them jumped really high into the air. Isaac had fun goofing around in the sand, but it was quite cold. The temperature had dropped to 12 and the wind was blowing like crazy, making it seem colder. We didn’t stop for long, it was just too chilly.

You can see all the kitesurfer's out on the ocean:

Our next stop was Half Moon Bay. We went to the State Park, but we were not allowed to have our dog there, so we left. It was also $10 and still super windy and cold, so we couldn’t be bothered. We went into town instead and got some warm drinks for the rest of the drive. It is a quaint little town and had a nice main street:

It was getting quite late by this time, so we just drove the rest of the way without stopping. There were some spectacular views.

We decided to check out Marin Point as a last stop before home, as Sanjeev had recommended that we check it out. This is on the other side of the Golden Gate from Land’s End park, so you get different views of the Golden Gate Bridge and you can see the city of San Francisco from this side. It was quite the drive up to the viewpoint, but it was spectacular. We took the tunnel route up, which had us going through a one-way tunnel to get to our destination and the coastal drive back, which afforded us amazing views of the San Francisco Bay area. Here are some pictures:

We finally got back after 7 and still had to have supper. Natasha and I made a quick pasta salad for supper, we watched an episode of Corner Gas while we cleaned up and then we called it a night.

Sonya