Frisco Vista

This photo of a view from Mt. Diablo in the East Bay comes from zevek’s photostream.
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Here’s a view of the SF skyline as seen from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley (which despite its name is located in Kensington), where I attended a family wedding on Saturday.
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The Lafayette Reservoir is a pretty little lake of 115 acres. It’s a tame spot, much used by joggers, families, and dog walkers. An easy 4.7-mile trail loops around the lake from the parking area. The reservoir itself is not drained seasonally as many are, so it retains a natural-looking, reedy shoreline.
There is a [...]

The struggling town of Martinez at last has a bona fide tourist attraction — the delightful beavers who have built a dam downtown on the Alhambra Creek. Some of the videos featuring these YouTube stars can be seen above and below.
So, if you’re Martinez, how do you capitalize on this attraction? Do you go all [...]

Each fall the tarantulas come out on Mount Diablo to mate. We saw a couple this year and read about a couple of cyclists — Mt. Diablo is popular with high-endurance mountain bikers — who got so distracted by a pair of mating tarantulas that they crashed into each other and had to be hospitalized.
It [...]

Most guides will have you enter the Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve from Coach Drive in Carriage Hills, but if you enter from the El Sobrante side — the trail head is at the end of Heavenly Ridge Lane — a short hike past the endangered Alameda Manzanita will take you to the top of the [...]

Hikers in the Wildcat Canyon hills above the city of Richmond may be surprised to come upon a glade full of palms and other exotic trees amid the chaparral and oak woodlands.

These are the vestiges of a sanitarium that overlooked the bay, with views of San Francisco to the south southwest

and Richmond to the west.

This [...]

Bravo to Contra Costa supervisors who unanimously voted down an attempt to expand the East Bay urban limit line — a line overwhelmingly approved by area voters less than a year ago.
The proposal would have created a 75-home development in El Sobrante. El Sobrante (home to an endangered species of manzanita) is already suffering from [...]

I had a chance to eat at Tamarindo Antojeria the other day. It’s located 468 8th Street in downtown Oakland. (The nicely restored brick-walled restaurant is in the city’s Old Town district.) Their website is www.tamarindoantojeria.com, and the phone is 510.444.1944.

Although it was a Wednesday the restaurant was very crowded. We arrived early because we [...]

So far the winter of 2006-207 has been a cool one in the Bay Area. But we got out for a short hike yesterday on Sobrante Ridge, and it was quite pleasant. The trail wasn’t muddy, and the manzanita was in bloom. I’m starting to post some pages on outdoor activities in the Bay Area.

Bay [...]