Discovering new discoveries close to home
Sandi had a therapy appointment yesterday in San Jose and I, with kids in tow, had an hour to kill. What better use of an hour than to find undicovered roads and learn a little bit at the same time?
It started out innocently enough. I took a right turn where I would normally take a left. It very quickly got exciting from there.
We were on North 1st street heading North. That takes you right into the heart of Alviso, a tiny little, almost forgotten town at the northern most end of San Jose and Milpitas. As we drove we were captivated by the style of the homes in the area. They were very turn-of-the-century, Southern Victorian style homes in the style of a hurricane infested residential area.
As we continued I noticed a few very old abandoned buildings. Then something caught my eye. It was a sign for the Alviso Yacht Club. Yacht Club? How could this be? There is not really a place to yacht around here. To prove myself correct, I drive just a little bit further.
I came to a court that had what appeared to be an entrance to a parking lot jutting out from it. Being in the mood for new discoveries I let my curiosity get the better of me and drove in. I am so glad I did that.
What we came across was the Alviso Marina County Park. Now I have known about Alviso all my life. I grew up in Newark and have lived in Fremont for quite a while. But I did not know that Alviso was this cool. And I specifically did not know that Alviso had this cool county park.
Since I had an hour I decided that the kids and I would get out and check this place out. And we were not disappointed. Though it is still a little early in Spring the poppies were out. The animals (squirrels, herons, pidgeons, lizards, etc) were out. The sun was out. It was perfect.
We hit the path and started looking, reading and snapping photos. There was a lot to look at and, even though it was a little warm, we managed to pretty much take the entire loop in about 45 minutes.
Here are some of the pictures we fetched while we were there.
As you can see we had a great big old time in this little park. I am amazed that I have never heard of this place before. The kids already want to go back. So do I. And I would love to take Sandi with us next time.
I would also like to spend a few minutes wandering around old town Alviso. I think it would be neat to see the little town and eat at some of their very cool looking, small town type restaurants.
