Cool Wheels!

My commute to work this morning was 45 minutes. Typical California commute, you say? Time-wise, yes. Path-wise, no. I rode my bike along the Steven’s Creek Trail. I had about 3/4 of a mile on residential streets and then the rest of the time was along the hike/bike path that had bridges, streams, and lots of other cyclists and pedestrians. I think I can take at least 10 minutes off my commute since I went slow (I got passed by a little girl on her tricycle going to school), was unsure on a couple of the turns, and there were quite a few bugs. I hit a couple of gnat clouds, but the worse was actually the ones that were just pounding me like little pellets. Thank goodness for sunglasses. Maybe I’ll wear a welder mask took keep the bugs out of nose and mouth. But at least I got some protein.

Here are some pictures (click on the picture for nicer, larger views):

The first part of the trail has a great tree canopy and is really cool. There are lots of turnoffs in this area that lead to residential areas, schools, or parks.

I ride over two bridges, one along the streets where I catch the trail and this one which is a bike/pedestrian bridge. I hit the bridge about 10 minutes into my commute to work and can go over it no problem; but on the way home I'm usually quite tired and struggle a bit.

I ride alongside the freeway for about 50 feet. It's very noisy in this area and the sound of the cars wash out my iPod.

At one point in time the trail crosses a major street.

The second third of my ride is along this stream. There are barely any trees in this area and a lot of bugs. But I also get to see ducks and some cool landmarks.

The large oval shaped building (from the top) with the black top used to be a blimp hangar for either NASA Ames or Moffet Field (Naval air base). Old people tell us that the city used to lose power whenever they would open or close the doors of the hangar. The buildings at the far left of the picture is the husband's work (Lockheed).

Nice view.

Cool truck (eye-candy for the husband).

The last third of my commute is partially along a golf course. On the right is the clubhouse for the course.

Google is to the left and another high-tech company is to the right.

This is where I get off the trail, right next to Intuit (TurboTax and Quicken).

I am proud of my commute to work. So far I've only ridden once a week due to soccer and other stuff I've had to do. I am surprised it takes me so long, but I tend to go slow, especially downhill. I am afraid of going to fast and falling off my bike. As I ride more, I'll probably get my commute time down. When I first started running on the treadmill, I had to hold on to the bar to keep from falling off. Now I can watch tv while I run on the treadmill.

In other news, I found Monkey all the way down and across the street as I was coming home from dinner. She was probably about 8 houses down. She was thinking about crossing the street as I drove by but pulled back as she saw/heard my car. I drove home, parked my car, and walked back to get her. She seemed a little confused and hesitant to let me pick her up. I am not happy that she went so far and across the street but maybe this was a one-time thing (since she seemed confused and disoriented). Whenever we try to keep her in for more than a few days, she tends to make some clear statements (icky statements) and she drives us crazy with her constant howling at the door. We've been through this debate before in trying to figure out if we should let Monkey out or not. We've escaped the dog that terrorized our old neighborhood but now we have the fear of cars. But at least Monkey is pretty street savvy and she still freaks out when she hears a car drive by. Being a mommy is hard.