20250405 Saturday, April 5, 2025: San Francisco Bay Trail, Tree Surgery, and Chef Chu’s

20250405 Saturday, April 5, 2025: San Francisco Bay Trail, Tree Surgery, and Chef Chu’s

Dave dropped by and picked us up with Eileen, and we walked the Locheed Reach of the San Francisco Bay Trail in Sunnyvale.  This started with a climb to the top of a hill, which was at one point the Sunnyvale landfill.  It is capped and plumbed to harvest methane, which feeds a power generation facility which, in conjunction with methane produced by the nearby anaerobic digesters, provides nearly all the energy required to run the Sunnyvale waste treatment plant. There is a nice view of the Sunnyvale water treatment plant, which creates a vast wetlands habitat for many migratory birds.  We saw some interesting ducks, herons, and other waterbirds paddling around in the settling ponds, as well as views of Eileen’s Locheed Martin plant complex and the giant blimp hangars at nearby Moffett Field.  It was a perfect day weather-wise with blue skies, very little wind, and temperatures in the upper 60s.  

After our walk, we stopped at Hobee’s, a quintessential Silicon Valley brunch place for omelets and their famous blueberry coffee cake.  

After getting back to Eileen’s, Ben topped off our fresh water, which had gotten down to 1/3 tank from washing and cooking.  The holding tanks are still reading empty, though.  In the afternoon, we joined Eileen in doing some tree surgery.  She has a mandarin orange tree and lemon tree in her side yard which were growing into and over utility and power lines.  We were able to successfully disentangle them and produced a mountain of citrus tree branches and lemons, which will keep Eileen’s organic recycling bin full for the next few weeks.  Fortunately, Coby’s girlfriend lives in an apartment complex where buckets of surplus lemons can easily disappear.  

In the evening, we went to Chef Chu’s with Dave, Sharlene, Ellen, Eileen, Brevan, Coby, and his girlfriend, Claire.  We had quite the feast and a good time. Chef Chu himself even came to the table to express his appreciation to all his faithful customers.  

After getting back to Eileen’s, we watched Gran Turismo, a movie about a video gamer’s actual ascent in the real world of racing in a story that was part Karate Kid, Rocky, and hard to imagine based on a real-life story.