Another Silicon Valley Commute

Over the decades that I spent in Silicon Valley, most days were productive (in the broadest, most liberal sense of that word), while many were excedingly stressful, some were disappointing, and others were simply unforgettable.

But the most wasteful were those hours driving the freeways, to and from the Mt. View, Cupertino areas, often in rush-hour traffic.

Click the menu on the left for stories about such days, on the right for the commute map, and read below to experience one of those thousands of the worst of it all.

leaving PATCHEN for another world on the road with KGO
  • Air is fresh and clean
  • Stream in the gulch across the road
    • still bubbling loudly
    • be dry by July
  • Robins chirping – flitting wildly about
  • Doe with fawn staring at me
    • from the trees
  • Wild turkey coaxes adolescent Coyote
    • “come get me” if you can
  • Fog rolling up Los Gatos Canyon
    • sky totally cloudless
    • as blue as any I’ve seen
    • going to be hot in a few hours
  • Feeling Pacific marine layer
    •  wisping through the treetops
    • fog-dripping from redwoods
      • with us till 10:00
      • returning by 4:00
  • I-680  closed
    • Alamo to Crow Canyon Road
    • both directions
    • highway patrol on the scene
    • woman threatening to jump
    • from overpass
  • Highway 101 at Junction Avenue
    • welding machine in the fast lane
    • cars swerving, to miss it
  • El Camino & San Tomas
    • someone lost garbage can
      • right in the intersection
      • cars trying to miss it
      • one guy darting into traffic
      • trying to pick it up
  • Construction Union picketer
    • stumbling drunkenly on sidewalk
    • rebuilding 1960s shopping center
      • partially burned last year
      • using non-union labor
    • buildings less obsolete than Union
  • Highway 17 at Camden
    • washing machine in the freeway
    • better take Highway 9 today
By: Jim
Written: June 8, 1987
Published: April 2022
Revised:
Reader feedback always appreciated