Hank played the role of tour director. He showed me the dog park, a big green park with LOTS of dogs and dog people. Even the water fountain was set up for dogs. "This was the first dog park" was what I remember. He said Berkeley is also home to the first small dog park, for pooches too small to hold their own at this one.

Not much later we rode past the last horse racing field in the bay area. I told him I was kind of sad when Bay Meadows closed. The spot was going to be condos, but it's sitting fallow now. They demolished the race track just in time for the housing bust.

This is a metalworks where they make a lot of useful steel stuff. He said it puts out lots of pollution. We think they start with scrap metal, not ore.

  

Hank thinks this bridge should be thought of as the "Donna Spring Memorial Bike Bridge". She put a lot of work into making it happen. It's a great bike link between the bay front trail we'd been riding on and downtown Berkeley and places like the University. I'd driven under it on I-80 many times, and I'd always wanted to go over it. That was the next thing we did.

     

It has statues at each end of the span. The one on the bay side honors some of the recreational possibilities available there, things like bird watching and kite flying. The other honors Berkeley's radical tradition and scholarship.

Those big brown piles Hank refers to as "urban ore". As a gardener he goes there for mulch and fertilizer. The waterway in the foreground is a surprisingly important part of the pacific flyway that migrating birds use. The biggest pond in Mountain View is much smaller. We saw lots of egrets.

  

On the way up the hill to Telegraph Ave. we stopped at City Hall. Across the street is the park where a lot of local festivals happen. On the other side was the Veterans Hall.

     

The last sight before we got to Jupiter was the tuning fork. Banging on it didn't make much of a resonant sound, but it had a bell just above waist height you could ring if you wanted a sound. Jupiter was a local brew pub, with delicious food and great beer. I ate Io and washed it down with some of the red spot.

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