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Simon Phipps's personal commentary

Three Improbables Before Supper

Three improbable finds to round out Sunday evening here in California.

Ghost Town in Silicon Valley: Sadly it's sold out, otherwise I would have been very tempted to take the train ride to Drawbridge on October 4th. You may just recall that Drawbridge is the San Francisco Bay's very own ghost town - I commented back in December and displayed this photo. Driving around Sunnyvale on Friday, the number of empty industrial spaces suggest Drawbridge may not be the only ghost town in the area for much longer, though.

East Bay Wildlife Refuge: I found out about the train tour while visiting the SF Bay National Wildlife Refuge for the first time. It's a surprisingly rural parkland and visitor centre set among the stark industrial sprawl of Newark (the one in California, naturally) ("A Wildlife Island in an Urban Sea"). It commands a gorgeous view of the Bay at sunset and is well worth visiting early evening (it closes at 8pm).

Cool hotel in industrial desert: Another way to enjoy the salt marshes (packed with birds) is on a bicycle, and fortunately my current favourite hotel offers free loaner cycles to guests. The hotel in question is the W Suites Silicon Valley. Just like the rest of the W chain it has cool, minimalist interiors; unlike the other hotels in the chain it's in the most unhip location imaginable (east end of the Dumbarton bridge in an industrial park). The rooms are big and well equipped (microwave, wet bar, broadband, squishy comfy bed, robes and so on) and the prices are usually low enough to fit the expense guidelines. The barman makes a mean mojito even if the bar does close at 10pm, and as I hinted they offer free bicycle loans to go touring around the wildlife refuge next door.

The unexpected still exists even on familar ground - there is beauty everywhere.

posted at 5:09 PM (UK) | |