Day Twenty-four

Day 24, September 6, Redwood City to San Jose Amtrak Station, 35 miles

Short ride today, at only 35 miles, but it was filled with wonder.

Cycling south out of Redwood City, I followed well marked bike routes through the shoulder to shoulder cities of the southwest part of the bay. Atherton, Menlo Park, Palo Alto and Stanford University, then to the bay shore wildlife areas of North Mountain View and Sunnyvale, and finally Santa Clara and San Jose. All pleasant, organized, obviously prosperous.

This may well be one of the wealthiest regions on the planet, but it all leans towards middle class values and norms. Nothing is ostentatious, just well organized, functional and of quality design and construction. Members of this tech society don’t seek dominance or a dependent underclass, they are just doing what they do. I think that’s their story, to themselves. That millions (billions?) feel displaced and confused by the new info-world these engineers have created is not something they seem prepared to notice or do anything about, except build bigger/faster/more robust systems. There’s no obvious smugness. Maybe just a self-imposed illusion that the next dot release will fix the bugs and make everything magically better for everyone. 

The towns are truly beautiful. Stanford’s campus is four times the size of Versailles, and probably richer. But it carries its wealth with a self-assured casualness.

There is an algorithmic, science derived Matthew Effect here (the rich just get richer because the technologies at their command self-propagate wealth). I don’t feel like I’m being critical here, just noticing and wondering out loud. Who even notices? Nobody is mean and they work hard and try to do the right thing. Yesterday, after riding by Oracles’ headquarters, I rode past the uber modern offices of the Center for Excellence in Nonprofits. It crossed my mind that this center, here, is an earnest hobby for the winners of magnificent tech wealth, kind of like the hobby of model railroading, except the layouts are comprised of real communities with real people. 

I followed my bike route as suggested by these very people, the programmers of Google Maps. And wow, the route carried me out of the cities and onto the bike paths that crisscross the astounding natural areas and wildlife refuges of the South Bay. Thousands of acres, protected, with flourishing populations and healthy habitats.

I met Sheldon, who was standing on the path next to a Canada goose.  Sheldon has named the goose Louisa. She has a broken wing and cannot fly. Sheldon has been bringing food to Louisa for over a year. He walks the paths through the wetlands daily, an avid observer of wildlife and nature’s cycles. Once I struck up a conversation, he shared an encyclopedic understanding of the area and its rhythms. In addition to being a birder and conservationist, Sheldon is a retired laser physicist and an Episcopalian priest. He said I can find him out in the refuge most afternoons, after he drops his wife off at work. 

What a place of contrasts. Gleaming office complexes, many designed for zero net energy use and contained waste cycles, amid thriving wildlife habitat. And anybody who decides to can get around without a car. The tech money is pouring in and this is what they are doing with it. 

Yesterday I mentioned some of the various ways to see the world by bicycle. The West Bay and Southwest Bay areas are prime cyclist habitat. Bike trails, trains, rentable bike lockers all over the place, great food, natural areas, a rich and self-aware culture (people have moved here from everywhere), and fun and outgoing denizens who are happy to talk with you if you just notice them. It’s a perfect region to make a base camp in a town of your choosing, hop on a train with your bike, discover a new part of the Bay Area, be back before dark, and head out in a different direction the next morning. I lived in Oakland as a kid, in 1967, when car mania was just cranking up. And it got bad. It’s different and better now.  I’ve heard so much about why people wouldn’t want to live here. Envy, maybe? I’m coming back. California is great. 

I catch the northbound train in an hour or so. After a stint at home catching up on living,  I’ll be back in the saddle here in San Jose on September 23, and hope to bang out the final 600 miles by October 2nd.