This is my backyard in Saratoga Springs. After a recent rainstorm, the northern creek somehow turned to chocolate milk. If I ever get a reasonable weekend, I’ll take some more photos of the area– it’s pretty amazing. I’ve always been a big fan of woods on the east coast, but the forests out here definitely give them a run for their money.
Down the road from Saratoga Springs are a number of redwood parks — Big Basin among them. Most of them aren’t dog friendly, but I pulled a list from bahiker.com of the few that are — luckily, one of them has a trailhead only 100 yards from here. Hopefully blackdog and I can wander around there this weekend.
NorCal, Randomness
I’ve never really been that into mexican food (it sucks on the east coast), but Nils had the great idea to get a bunch of people together for a taco crawl. Head to the Mission in San Francisco, head to various taquerias, and drink various beers. Sounds good to me.
As I can count the number of times I’ve been to SF on one hand, I was somewhat out of my element. The Mission was described to me as being similar to Williamsburg, Brooklyn (where I used to live), which is somewhat accurate if you’re talking about the shady part of Williamsburg that nobody wants to go to. It seemed like a less bustling Spanish Harlem to me, but whatever.
I don’t know why it’s called the Mission, but we were on a mission to eat lots of mexican food, and we succeeded. You can poke through my yelp reviews (http://beer.yelp.com) for the places that we went, but I must say I’m now a fan of west coast mexican food.
While SF is quite a ways away from Saratoga, the ease of getting in and out of the city is something that you don’t normally find. In the DCs and New Yorks of the world, it’s a disaster getting in and out. In SF, the 101 is really well integrated into the city, and the suburbs are such that you’re not having to blast you way through a mess to get where you’re going. (I assume this is different during weekday commutes, though)
The food was great everywhere we went and actually tasted somewhat healthy (maybe I’m kidding myself..), but the highlight as finding real glass bottle coke imported from mexico — made with sugar and not high fructose corn syrup.
Enjoy the pictures:
NorCal
The rain finally stopped, and the campground emptied out. Just me and one other fulltimer in the transient lot. (There’s a “permanent” lot in the back which seems to never empty out — not sure if some of those rigs even run..)
A number of airstream updates:
- MUST replace the stove with a convection microwave. Need counter space.
- Either need to rip out the dinette or lower the table by 4″, the ergos suck.
- Need to replace the plywood under the couch cushions with something springy.
- When it doesn’t stop raining for a week, there are leaks. I’ve counted 5. Not severe, but in weird places that are difficult to caulk.
The campground upgraded to a T1 last week. The auth portal is still a POS and forces you to reconnect every now and then, but it’s much better. Not reliable enough for vidconf or voip though.
Also, I’m happy to report jrand (motorcycle in the january photos) made it back to New York safely. Chain and sprocket needed to be replaced in Virginia, but other than that and a few random stops along the way, no trouble. Photos here.
NorCal
My attempt to skip winter by coming to California has officially failed. Temperatures in the low 30s at night, barely breaking 50 during the day. Even in propane-conservation mode (short showers, water heater only on in the morning), I’m burning a tank of propane every week. Magic seems to have realized that we’re goign to have to wait this one out, so he sleeps all day.
Tomorrow the forecast includes some hurricane force winds and 3″ of rain. The plan was to do some hiking this weekend and explore some state parks, but, so much for that. (The alternative plan was to go to LA, but packing up the rig for a three day weekend and 700 miles didn’t seem worth the trip. Will head down there for a month later this spring)
But, there are certainly worse places to be than camping in the woods, next to a stream, with a funny eared dog. 
NorCal
Trading my million-dollar view on the cliff overlooking the pacific for a secluded, forested valley has been an interesting change. There are several other RVs here, but the high-end snobbery of Malibu is gone. It’s possible that some of these people are semi-fulltime, trying to avoid the high costs of living in the bay area, I presume.
Saratoga Springs is mostly a corporate retreat with some camping facilities; the owners are super nice and accommodating. They have no sewer facilities, but have a pumping truck that comes around now and then, which is sortof annoying (especially considering my tank sensors don’t work so I can’t actually tell when there is about to be a sewage disaster)
The one downside of living in the woods is that Magic’s walking schedule is a mess. We’ve been getting up early in the morning to do some trail running, but otherwise we have to go for walks at the office, as the daylight situation is not ideal right now — and there are no lights here at night. This basically means that he has random energy at random bad times of the day, often bothering my office mate. (sorry, doug)
NorCal
