I texted people, stopped at the liquor store and cafe and headed out to meet some of my companions at 15th. We rode Valencia to Tiffany and up San Jose to meet where we found a few others. Finally, on climbing through the Bernal Cut and up Alemany we met most of the rest of our crew.
We stopped to catch our breath in couple places: Huron near Lawrence at Sickles and at 7-11 on Hillside. The ride up Irvington and Brunswick was great but the ride on Hillside was a bit sketchy because it’s really steep. We passed through Holy Cross without stopping and texted our last two crew members at San Bruno BART who we had no trouble meeting. However, the connection at the station is terrible.
I got to know some of the new people on the ride as I led the group across El Camino to the Federal Building on Commodore to Bayhill Road and we climbed to Shady Creek. Sadly, the path to the back entrance sucked because of a curb and also a lot of bushes. Likewise, I noted that the climb up Rosewood was tough.
At the top several people indicated that Sneath was better. I was skeptical. All of these problems were the source of much conversation. Meanwhile the line for sandwiches was way long so I got bread and cheese instead. We shoved off after we put some beers in our bags.
When we got on San Andreas Trail and headed out, I noted that this segment was not especially interesting. However, I did point out Portola Gate to the group and we also encountered a snake!
After this I circled up at a couple of spots where the trail turned to dirt and then we took the neighborhood streets to get to the Crystal Springs Trail. I noted that when we entered the park again we climbed up to the first spot and I got some photos. After that we rode very quickly down to the dam on San Andreas and did a group photo. Some of us were very hungry at this point. So, we continued down to the picnic spots at my suggestion.
Everyone had a good time, even though the spot was shaded. I snuck around in the woods for a bit and snacked on my pretzel buns and ate the popcorn and beer people had offered. I spoke a little bit to everyone and then we wrote to see the second biggest Laurel in the state.
We made one stop before getting to Crystal Springs Dam where we drank beer and congratulated ourselves. Along Cañada Road we met up with a late arrival to our group from Palo Alto, who had texted that he was at the Pulgas Water Temple.
The path in that area is separate on the far side and then takes a separate road. I spent a lot of time occupying the road and we managed to restrict cars from passing us all the way up to 92. After that I shot past everyone to go through the greenlight – thankfully everyone made it. A couple of our group were really slow.
We rode to Pulgas Water Temple and our newest companion met us on the road. We sat under the temple with refreshments and snacks. I noted that the well was actually a steel great. Later we headed past Filoli and then some of our group indicated that they wanted to go to Caltrain as fast as possible so we upped our speed. I noted that we were really good with the time.
We rode as far as Edgewood and I fell back to check on the slower people. They were fine but the group had spread out because everyone had different constitution. At La Cañada College we had lost them but we were able to wait. I felt bad because a couple of people didn’t hear us as we climbed into the college but we went back and found them.
We continued to the top and over to Farm Hill. The downhill on that stretch is really steep and a few people got a head as we passed Stockholm Park so we missed my preferred turn. However it was OK because one some of the others took over and we found a side street as soon as the last of our group appeared.
When we finally said our goodbyes at the train station we barely made our train.
This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.
