Livermore and Oakland, CA - May 27, 2008

Tuesday May 27
We got up and got around. The girls went and had breakfast at the hotel while I packed up the car and we got on Highway 198 and drove over to I-5 and headed for Oakland. We saw more "fruits and nuts" on the way. Also saw the San Luis Canal which is part of the California Aquaduct system, not all that signifcant to most people, but I'd heard a news story on it about a week before we left. About 3 miles onto I-5 from 198 we experienced something that I will forever forewarn people about that may be travelling that way...the stink to end all stink. Be sure to pack nose plugs. There is a HUGE feedlot not far up the road and it was loaded with cows literally as far as the eye could see. When you get on I-5 there just turn your vents off, trust me the being hot is better than the smell you will pull into your car if you leave them on. The only thing I could come up with to describe the smell would be to take the most heinous of dirty baby diapers you can find and duct tape it to your face and then go stand in a closet full of upset skunks, dirty gym socks and vomit. It was so foul!

Once we got past that and the smell started fading away (a good 1/2 hour or more later) we encountered more wind farms and I saw my first lemon tree grove, which got a song by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Band stuck in my head (check out a YouTube post of Lemon Tree, the Theivery Corporation remix...good stuff).

We stopped for lunch in Livermore, CA at a plaza we found off the highway. We had choices of Vietnamese, some deli place, or Mediterranean...we voted and the latter got the nod, so we ended up at Piccola Casa Restaurant. This was by far the best meal we'd had up to that point in the trip. I had the pistachio crusted lamb with garlic mashed potatoes, it was quite good. We decided since we'd skipped lunch the day before we'd splurge on dessert and ordered the chocolate chambord ganache; beautiful presentation, looked like some kind of Native American painting of a sunset and the taste was...to quote one of my favorite Food Network stars, Guy Fieri..."off the hook". After that awesome meal we headed to Oakland and arrived at Bonnie's brother's (Bruce's) house around 2 pm. We took the tour of his house as neither of us had been there before. It's a really nicely restored 2 story bungalow with solar water heating and a nice garden area where many birds would come to hang out at all the feeders that were out for them. After we got our bags in and sat for a little bit, we headed over to Tilden Park. Along the way we stopped to take a look at the Bay Area and snap a picture.

The park was a nice park with numerous hiking trails and a small farm known as "The Little Farm" where there are a few animals that are part of a petting area. We walked around and of course my binoculars were on me and I was looking for every western bird I could spot.

My species list from there ended up being as follows:
Dark-eyed "Oregon" Junco
Violet-green Swallow
California Towhee*
Pacific-slope Flycatcher*
Song Sparrow
Barn Swallow
Common Raven
Chestnut-backed Chickadee*
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Stellar's Jay
American Robin
Mallard
Wilson's Warbler
Brown Creeper

So I managed to add 3 new birds (*) to my life list on that little outing. 

We headed back to Bruce's place and had some yummy lasagna that Juliet had made for us. She got home from work later and joined us at the table and we sat around and talked for a while before retiring to bed. I sat up and listened to some of the stations there in the Bay Area while I made some notes that became my previous note and this one as well.