May 18, 2021 Travel Map

Oakland

May 19, 2021

On my way to Oakland yesterday from the Golden Gate Bridge, I made a detour to Walnut Creek. Somewhere in my past I had heard it is a nice place so I checked it out. Perhaps I missed the really nice residential areas -- it seemed like a standard California city of approximately 80,000 people. The downtown shopping area was quite upscale with a Needless Markups and other such stores. I read that Steph Curry lives (lived?) there so it's got that going for it. Perhaps I have become jaded by the affluence I have seen in California. Perhaps it is the extremes that big cities tend to have -- extreme wealth and people living on the streets. I do catch a nit of the California Dream -- the weather is sunny with warm days and cool nights. There is a newness about many places that we don't have on the East Coast. Could I live here? Probably not on my budget. Not in Oakland for sure (from what I have seen). San Francisco would be fun to explore for a while. Walnut Creek struck me as too suburban.

Random thoughts for a Wednesday morning.

Today I head south to go north -- avoiding long bridges.