Author name: Clairet

Because of extreme heat warnings, I planned this expedition to hit the coolest spots. Of course, I could have just stayed home since Berkeley rarely gets too hot. When I passed through San Rafael around noon, the car thermometer said it was 90 degrees. In Tiburon it was only about 80.  The Tiburon Railroad & […]

June 26, 2024. Today I walked a section of the Double Cross Trail, companion to the Crosstown Trail. The trails create an X across San Francisco with the Double Cross Trail going from southwest to northeast. I started at the southwest corner, the overlook near the hang glider area. I love this warning sign where

June 12, 2024. I started by visiting two of the four Andy Goldsworthy pieces in the park, Wood Line and the Spire. The Wood Line is a 1,000 foot + snaking S curve of tree trunks that’s very hard to photograph well in dappled sunlight! You’ll have to look it up online.  I visited it

As locals know, Colma is a city south of San Francisco that is mostly cemeteries. About 1500 people live there along with about two million deceased. Why? The gold rush increased San Francisco’s population quickly and more cemetery space was needed. But the city needed that land for housing and businesses and wouldn’t permit more

The East Cut neighborhood was formed in 2017 from the Yerba Buena, South Beach and Rincon Hill neighborhoods. Realtors talk it up as an exciting, vibrant (realtor-speak) area with great walkability. Some decry it as a soulless, realtor-invented place. I found it to be an interesting mix of new and old. Note: the 19th Street BART

I started at the Richmond Art Center. It’s part of the Richmond Civic Center which was planned in part by Richard Neutra and later designed anew by Timothy Pflueger (Pacific Telephone building, Castro Theater, Pacfic Stock Exchange, 450 Sutter Street, with its majestic gilded lobby). The civic center is more Bauhaus than ornate and I

May 16. I biked to the Berkeley Amtrak station to get the train to Martinez. I’ve never taken a train from this station before and was not expecting to step up almost two feet into the train. It was a little tricky (and not very graceful) lifting my bike into the train. In Martinez, the

May 1, 2024: I started at Lobos Valley Creek Trail boardwalk where I left off in January (Expedition 24) and walked south. This is about halfway through section 5. The path meanders through a field of coastal natives, including lots of lizards sunning themselves.  Then you’re back in the city again, although walking on the

The sharp eyed among you may notice that last week I posted Expedition 31 and now we’re back to 30. What gives? I took Expedition 30 right before my trip to Mexico and ran out of time/got distracted and forgot to post it. So, here you go! The USS Hornet is huge. Huge on the

Expeditions are back! I had so much fun at the zoo and aquarium in Mexico that when I saw the fish feeding event at Crab Cove in Alameda I had to go! I think I must have visited this little nature center at some time in the distant past but it slipped off my radar.