The Bridge and the Mountain

We walked up to Peets this morning, sat on 'our' old bench and noted how uncomfortable uniquely unsuited to the human posterior it is. The benches haven't changed, but our posteriors have! The coffee didn't seem as good as we remembered it  and although we saw a few familiar faces, we didn't see any one we knew. The flower stand is gone but everything else looked as we remember it. There were a LOT of dogs and Spike wanted to meet every one of them.

We walked back through some of the old neighborhoods and across Magnolia Street. A man was coming out of 'our' house with three young children and we introduced ourselves. He explained that they had recently moved from Minnesota and were renting the house from the people we sold it to. We didn't find out why they were here, but said they would be looking for a house to buy. Good luck to them as prices in the Bay Area are beyond eye watering. We didn’t chat long as the kids were anxious to do some school shopping. The house looked the same, although the low growing trees in the front are now quite tall and Tim's apple tree died and had been removed. 

We had forgotten how big a lot of Berkeley houses are, many of the ones we know anything about now occupied by only one or two people, so it was nice to see a young family living there

Every time we return to Berkeley we are struck by how densely populated and urban it has become on the one hand yet how little changed it is. The difference is undoubtedly the growing student population. They are trying to put a cap on the number of students at Cal at 33,000. That is a lot of people who need housing. It seemed quite ironic that once again there are demonstrations and uproar over the university's desire to build dorms in 'People's Park', long a haven for the homeless and the disenfranchised. This was going on almost 50 years ago when tear gas  used on demonstrators floated over the elementary school where Dana was in kindergarten. That time the demonstrators won. This time it looks like the university will get its way.

We drove home over the Richmond-San Rafael bridge which has a newly installed pedestrian/bicycle lane. There were quite a few people using it, although even driving in that lane used to make me slightly queasy. another iconic Bay Area peak, Mt. Tamalpias, is on the left of the bridge and the Marin hills on the right. I put a better picture of Mt. Tam with San Quentin Prison nestled at it's foot in extras. And I did find the picture of the bicyclist sitting on the bench where John was sitting yesterday and put it in yesterday's extras. 

The Seaview trail in Tilden Regional park where we hiked yesterday is still one of the places I really miss. It wasn't at its best yesterday because everything is so dry and dusty, but situated as it is on a ridgeline, it has beautiful views both to the West and the San Francisco skyline and to the east to San Pablo Dam and Mt. Diablo. And dogs don't have to be on a leash....

Now we are home again and feeling both satisfied that we made the trip and happy to be home again....