M-T-N View

I feel techier today. We spent Friday and Saturday in Silicon Valley—our first time in the area—and perhaps something rubbed off on me as we made our way through Mountain View. (Or, as our GPS said, “M-T-N View.”) TechLink, Gemfire, Force Networks, Brocade—the techy names on the sides of glass-sided office buildings flew by as we made our way into the city. Behind those walls, something was being coded; something was being engineered; something was being data-warehoused. I don’t know what those things mean, but somehow I could feel them going on around us. It was a gorgeous Bay Area day—low 70s, not a cloud in the sky. It felt like we were in California, the California of myth and icon, not the one of strip malls and electric wires.

Our hotel room promised, according to the website, to stimulate both the left and right sides of our brains; in one desk drawer were standard office supplies (stapler, scissors, Post-Its), while the other held a Rubik’s Cube, an Etch A Sketch, a deck or cards, and a gyroscope, whatever that is. All the furniture was on wheels in case we felt like moving it around (something that wouldn’t have occurred to me had the hotel’s website not invited me to “unleash your inner decorator”). The halls were decorated with cool artwork from 1930s-era Russia. Since we have a baby, we did not make use of the “hi-fi lounge,” but it sounds geeky and fun.

Andrew had some business to take care of Friday afternoon, so Lucia and I set out on a long walk around our neighborhood. We saw gorgeous flowers in every yard—roses are in full bloom right now—and some huge houses with three-car garages. We walked around a park, where I sat on a bench and read for a bit while Lucia snoozed. When we got back to the hotel, we sat by the pool, where Lucia seemed entranced by the water.

When Andrew rejoined us, we headed to Castro Street, the main downtown area, and explored. We stopped for brownies and baklava at a bakery, where I saw my first iPad in the wild and overheard conversations peppered with phrases like “we still have our day jobs” and “right now it’s just a three-person startup.” Then we had an additional snack of a barbeque pork bun at an Asian bakery. We looked at houses and peeked at the brochures in front of homes for sale. When the restaurants opened for dinner (dining-out dinner hour for us is 5pm these days), we found a Thai restaurant with outdoor seating and had a fantastic meal. It was lovely to sit outside on a gorgeous evening, with our good little traveler sitting good-naturedly in her stroller next to us, people-watching and trying to guess which of the scruffy young guys walking by was a programming/coding/software whatever genius.

Soon we were back at our hotel for Lucia’s bedtime. We took turns going outside to use the hot tub and pool while she slept, and then we slept ourselves.

Saturday morning, we went to a nearby park for a huge “garage sale” consisting of probably fifty sellers spread out on tables and blankets. We found a few treasures, and then we headed to San Jose to yet another flea market—one we’d heard about a few weeks ago on a documentary about flea markets we came across briefly on TV. It was less than we’d hoped for, but we strolled around and had tacos for lunch and then escorted our hysterical, nap-needing baby back to the car, where she slept all the way to Napa for a visit with the Clarks.

And then we were home again. It was a really fun couple of days in a new part of California.

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