penitent, turbulent, multiplex!

I was supposed to hike the Black Mountain Trail today, but I realized that I wanted to take pictures of it while I was there. So, I postponed the trip until next week so that I could bike out to Fry’s Electronics in Palo Alto to buy a digital camera instead. I figured that this would also be a good opportunity to see the part of town that didn’t want to beat me up.

Unfortunately, I sprung a leak in my rear tire last night on the way home from work. I went into the garage this morning and inflated the tire a bit to see if I could detect the leak, and it seemed like it was holding the air pretty well. So, I removed the pump, and in doing so ripped the valve right out of the tube. I must have been feeling really Zen today, because I somehow framed the situation as an opportunity to learn how to replace a tube in the comfort of my own home. I walked out to the nearest bike store with the mangled tube, bought a few replacements, came back, and did the repair. (I cannot for the life of me understand how the rear wheel hooked itself back onto the chain. It just sort of happened.) By the time I had convinced myself that everything was working, it was about 2:30pm, and it looked like it was going to pour rain. Living in Vancouver for 5 months has had the effect of making me indifferent to rainstorms, so I took off to Fry’s.

Fry’s Electronics is possibly the most stressful store that I have ever been to. It’s about 10 times bigger than your average Wal-Mart, and it has a Wild West theme to boot. I bought my camera and got the heck out of there as fast as I could. (When I lined up to pay, I was directed to cashier sixty-two. That’s about fifty cashiers too many for my liking.) I then headed west towards Stanford to check out University Avenue, which as far as I know is ‘downtown’ Palo Alto.

Here’s my initial view of things as I stopped to park my bike:

The first thing in town that caught my eye was the Borders cafe and bookstore. It had a courtyard and a fountain outside, and I thought to myself, “What a cute little place.” I walked in, and discovered that it was anything but little:

There was also a really cool little vegan restaurant that I noticed on one of the sidestreets…

…and a funky-looking flower shop that was definitely not stylistically conformant with its surroundings:

After exploring for a while, I found myself wanting to stop for fivesies. I settled on a little Greek joint, and ate the best gyros I have ever tasted. They were so good that I had to take a picture of the place, even though it’s not all that much to look at:

By this time, the sky was looking even grumpier than it did before, so I retrieved my bike and started towards home. On the way, though, I passed California Avenue, and couldn’t resist exploring a bit. It looks like a commuter-workplace sort of strip; there are tons of little cafes and businesses, but the street was completely devoid of any activity. Still, I saw some things that I found interesting, like…

… the Stanford Human Genome Center:

… the California Ave Caltrain station, in all its patriotic glory:

… and this weird statue:

Having sufficiently quenched my thirst for suburban exploration, I made a beeline for home. 10 miles later, my tube replacement job seems to be holding up:

All in all, it was an eventful day. With some luck, I’ll have some cool pics from the Black Mountain Trail for y’all next week.