Because people are lazy, American Idol-watching couch potatoes, or because the trails in our parks are too steep, and littered with cow poop? A guy named, appropriately enough, Ted Stroll, brought this up in a commentary in the Chronicle last…
Yearly Archives: 2008
Scouting Santa Teresa County Park
by tom • March 27, 2008 • 3 Comments
This has to be the most-documented local park I’ve never been to. It’s in south San Jose about a mile beyond the terminus of the Santa Teresa light-rail line. It has one large hill and respectable wildflower action in the…
Santa Clara County car camping recommendations
by tom • March 26, 2008 • 5 Comments
Nice places to car camp near Silicon Valley: Mount Madonna: Most ecologically diverse county park, with miles of great redwood and oak woodland hiking. It’s better to camp here in the spring or fall. The marine layer from the Pacific…
East Bay Parks photo contest winners
by tom • March 25, 2008 • 0 Comments
The park district has a page with all the winning entries from its 2007 photography contest. Sunol Wilderness, Morgan Territory and Mount Diablo are among the stars in the show. Click the link to see ’em all. More great East…
Hot falcon sex update
by tom • March 25, 2008 • 4 Comments
Those sexy peregrine falcons have been at it again, judging from the webcam high on a ledge of the San Jose City Hall, where the happy couple are warming four eggs (“they look like little red potatoes,” Melissa exclaims) for…
Crafting a pot cozy
by tom • March 25, 2008 • 3 Comments
A blog called Source to Sea offers step-by-step guidance for making a pot cozy. A pot cozy saves fuel and creates and alternative to simmering when you’re using, say, a one-burn, one-setting alcohol stove, but I’d take one along even…
Gear shop shuttered, Google ads gone
by tom • March 24, 2008 • 4 Comments
I noticed over the weekend I was experiencing pangs of longing to check out how my attempts at e-commerce were faring. Not something you want to experience on a camp-out. That was when I realized a) the buck-chasing (well, penny-chasing)…
Carrizo Plain camp-out report
by tom • March 24, 2008 • 9 Comments
It’s a damn long drive to Carrizo Plain National Monument from the Bay Area (or any area, for that matter) to see this. Must be why they call it a plain, eh? Then again, you can never tell a park…
Carrizo Plain pictures posted
by tom • March 23, 2008 • 1 Comment
They’re here. I’ll do a write-up later (probably tomorrow, actually).