Everyone Comes to Palo Alto, ugh.......

Today's 7AM start because of the light change found me out  here on Page Mill just above Foothill Expressway in the middle of commute traffic. Gonna have to do some serious rethinking  about a best start time here during the week as workers from all over the Bay Area pour into Palo Alto for their jobs. To give  you an idea of the kind of volume we're talking. according to the US Census Bureau, 47,707 people or 81% of the entire size of the city both come and go from Palo Alto on most any given work day of the week. 

What this looks like on Foothill Expressway, the acclaimed bicycle speedway that I talked about yesterday, can be seen as I leave Palo Alto at about 7:45 in the AM. Note the empty lanes at the right of the picture, and , if you can make it  out, the pack of cars coming toward town in the upper left. Hmm, maybe the answer is not to warm up in Palo Alto on the bike boulevard and neighborhood streets but to get out of the city as fast as I can. And since I live in its southern part, maybe that means heading toward Mountain View, Sunnyvale, even Cupertino. More hmmmmmm.....

When people are out to greet me as I ride, I occasionally hear, "Hi there". I never have time or the presence of mind to ask them, but I always find myself asking if a pun was intended. I mean on the Eagle, I am 'Hi' in many ways....

And yet the picture to the left is for all those who ask, "What's the weather like up there?" It is a long way down. And try to imagine what all of this looks like when you are going down the kind of hill I talked about yesterday when I descended on Hillview. I am seeing all this from eight feet above the ground!!

All told, today was 20 miles of noise and  cars. And on the way home, as I was slowed down by the very busy rail road tracks that run north and south the length of the peninsula, I thought about how this was the most active bike carrying train system in North America. If not the world. I mean on every train, there is one complete car and sometimes two with only bikes and their riders. And what's even more  wild for me to ponder is the fact that the very intelligent and other wise sophisticated communities that have sprung up along its way are all built now around a locomotive system that dates back to the time of Abraham Lincoln. Whoaaaa...

Above: Took this blurry picture of myself as

 I rode by  the Trader Joes mirrored storefront

54 days and counting until Sunday May 3 when we ride from Palo Alt City Hall to San Francisco City Hall  to start my ride. To join us go HERE!!

Note: This ride is not about me but it is a celebration of all the people who have helped me get back to wholeness physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially. This as I stand on the shoulders of giants to enjoy the privilege of riding this bike, the only Eagle in active use west of the Mississippi ... THX 4 all of U!!