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My plan was to take the self guided Cal Berkeley campus sustainability tour. This tour snakes through campus visiting sites devoted to water recycling, bike repair, waste reuse, and a pollinator garden. Unfortunately, many sights are on the first floor of the student union which is only open to students.  On Expedition 13, I investigated the […]

I went here Wednesday because it was the last day to see an exhibit of outdoor sculptures by Les Lalanne, a French couple who sculpt fanciful bronze animals and human figures. I also went because although the building has been closed since the pandemic, I think the redwood park next to it has been closed

My first stop was Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, founded in 1903. It’s been closed to new interments for quite some time but the crematorium is still operational and I saw markers from 2023 in the scattering garden. I’ve never heard of scattering gardens before but apparently they are common and they really are little garden

I started my journey in Emeryville, where you can pick up some reading material courtesy of Friends of the Oakland Public Library. I love how this route (which I took for my Martinez expedition in May) runs right along the bay from Point Molate to Martinez.  People ask me how I find places to go.

My friend Scooter invited me to help out on one of his new tours of the Oakland Fox Theater, so I used it as an opportunity to explore other art deco buildings nearby. I started in the north at the Sears Roebuck building on Telegraph. Sears had enormous buildings similar to this one (the Oakland

October 24, 2024. There are two brand new parks along the eastern side of San Francisco, Bayfront Park and India /Basin Waterfront Park (for those curious how I find this stuff out, the info came from Johnny Funcheap). I took my Uptown Breezer bike over on BART and started at the northern park, which is

Why expeditions? I started doing these for a very specific reason. When I got home from my trip to Japan in May of 2023, I fell into a depression for weeks. I can’t put my finger on it, but something about Japan deeply affected me and I felt the loss of it quite strongly. I’ve

My first stop was at a gallery/salon/shop called Grand Opening, hidden away at the far end of 4th Street in Berkeley (you can find them on Instagram). Out front is a repurposed newspaper box where you can trade cassettes and CDs. The salon hosts events too. I plan to go to Saturday’s event, the Canned

My first stop in this neighborhood, which has been mostly Latino since the 60’s, was Peralta Hacienda Historical Park. I knew the house would be closed but the grounds are still worth a look. They’re part of the 44,000-acre Rancho San Antonio, a land grant from Spain in 1820 that went from today’s San Leandro

August 14, 2024. This time I wanted to go somewhere that felt far away without being toooo far away and Grizzly island fit the bill. It’s not a park, it’s part of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. There is no visitor center nor benches or bathrooms. And it was closed. Darn. I had