• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Leanne is on a rotation in San Jose, CA right in the heart of Silicon Valley. San Jose is so beautiful and lively! We walked around the downtown San Jose area where there were tons of fun restaurants and alleys with incredible street art. In Japantown there were grocery stores filled with authentic Japanese groceries that brought me right back to Tokyo!

Perhaps the most fun part of San Jose though was the huge mall and Santana Row. First, the huge mall is filled with some of the ritziest stores I’ve seen. Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc. Some of the funnest stores ever like Lego, Disney, and Uniqlo. And also, some of the best restaurants ever like this amazing ramen place we went to and, one of my favorites, The Cheesecake Factory.

Santana Row is right next to the mall and is a street filled with restaurants and shops. Leanne loved the taro bubble tea she got there and I loved seeing a store just filled with products from tech startups! Universal translator like on Star Trek? Check. Projector that projects an Android tablet onto any surface that you can actually interact with so you feel like you’re in Minority Report? Yep they had that too! We were definitely in Silicon Valley!

We started playing chess, Chinese checkers, and doing puzzles. Leanne also got an awesome exercise game for the Nintendo Switch! Any other good two player recommendations?

The second day of our Labor Day weekend was spent enjoying San Francisco! Even though we’ve been to the city a few times before, there’s always more to see and experience, and the city never gets old.

We explored Chinatown. So many of the shops were closed because of coronavirus, and it seems many of them will be for good. For the few still left though, it was fun to explore.

One of the more interesting things we noticed was in one of the parks in Chinatown, there were a lot of Mandarin speakers in groups of two to four huddled over makeshift tables made from cardboard boxes. They were playing some sort of card game and after every round one of them would pull out their wallets and put money on the table. We have no idea what they were playing but it was fun hanging out there and people watching.

Another fun thing that happened was as we were walking down the street, I noticed a shop that appeared to be in a basement as it had stairs leading down to it. The sign for it was in Mandarin which I couldn’t read so I figured, hey why don’t I just go down and see what’s happening there? As soon as I started walking down, an elderly Chinese woman looks at me sternly and says in a disapproving and stern town “Mahjong” while wagging her finger. Taken aback, I took a step back. She then proceeded to pass me, reeking of smoke, and go down the stairs into the place! I guess it’s time to learn Mahjong!

We ended the day getting a late lunch and shopping in Japantown. If you haven’t had Marufuku ramen yet, you haven’t truly lived!

With a three day holiday weekend we decided to travel! Unfortunately we were unable to book limited entry into Yosemite National Park (and thank goodness anyway because wildfires caused it to get evacuated!) so we decided to see Bodega Bay!

On the way we stopped by a small town in the California countryside where we randomly found a creamery.

Next stop was Bodega Bay! This is a bay on the Pacific coast of Northern California, just a bit north of San Francisco. Bodega Bay was absolutely beautiful, and a needed respite from the 110+ degree weather in the valley where we live. The cold Pacific Ocean breeze kept the bay in the 70s, perfect for hiking.

We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying Santa Rosa, CA, a nearby small city. They had done a lot to help small businesses including closing the roads around them so there was plenty of space to socially distance. We checked out used book stores, touristy shops, a toy store, and so many other fun shops.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Wildfires continue to rage through California. Thank goodness Leanne and I are ok and safe. It’s crazy to look up at the sky in the middle of the day and it’s a deep dark orange, as if we were looking up at the sky on Mars. Apparently there is so much smoke in the air from all the numerous wildfires, that even though they aren’t that close to us the smoke still completely covers the sky. Also strange is coming to your car in the morning and see ash falling from the sky like snow!

The LNU Lightning Complex fire has now burned over 200,000 acres but is 7% contained. Surrounding areas have lifted their evacuation mandates and it looks like everything will be ok for us.

Just a quick 20 minute drive from our house is a large and growing fire, the LNU Lightning Complex fire, that has already burned 32,000 acres and is 0% contained. Thankfully we are far enough away to not be evacuated but close enough to see and smell the smoke. Add in the heat wave with high of 103 today. Whenever I think, can 2020 get crazier? The answer is always a resounding yes.

You may have seen on the news that California is in the midst of a massive heat wave. The last few days it’s gotten up to 110 degrees outside, which is absolutely miserable to do anything in! However, as you get closer to the Bay, the temperature drops because of the cool Pacific water and breeze. Because of this, over the weekend we decided to go to Point Reyes near the ocean and hike from early in the morning.

We started the hike easy enough. There were beautiful trails, a lake that was refreshingly cool in the summer heat, and so many birds to see. There are even bird observatories there (currently closed though) because of the wide variety of birds in the area. We kept along the main trail but Leanne discovered a secret unmarked trail on her hiking app that took us through a really cool trail with overhead branches over much of it. It felt like a trail for hobbits. Even we had to duck at points!

Though legs were burning and we were exhausted, it was worth it to see the waterfall at the end. Very cool, clear, refreshing water!

The waterfall was right next to the beach. We had to climb down steep and slippery rocks but we managed to get to the bottom safely and walk along the beach! After 3.5 hrs of hiking, it was nice to relax for a bit!

We hiked back the 3.5 miles and toward the end our legs felt like noodles. At the very end we hiked 15.6 miles over 6 hours 45 minutes. This was four days ago and we are still sore!