I’ve spent the past two weeks virtually walking from Fairfield southwest to Vallejo, then turning south. Across the Carquinez Strait on the bridge carrying Interstate 680 — but there does appear to be a pedestrian lane, separated from the high speed traffic with concrete barriers. Not the most rewarding walking path around, but Google Maps says it works. From there south to San Ramon, then southwest through Hayward to Newark, and across San Francisco Bay on the Dumbarton Bridge to Palo Alto.
It’s been a while since my virtual path intersected a place I’ve been in real life. Denver, I think, was the last time, though Olympia, WA came close. But I’ve spent time in Palo Alto, in the 1990s and 2000s, doing research at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Today my path took me practically next door to SLAC, to something I saw but never really visited: the Stanford Dish .

Stanford Dish ( credit , license )
This is a 46 meter radio antenna, built in 1961. It’s been used to detect signals bounced off the Moon, to communicate with satellites and spacecraft, and for radio astronomy.
There’s an undeveloped area around the Dish, running through which is a 5.6 km recreational trail, and grazing on which are 360 cows. There are other creatures too. Quoting the Dish website, “The Dish supports wildlife and plants that pose some risk to humans including mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, wild turkeys, rattlesnakes, tarantulas, wasps, bees, ticks, and poison oak.” Weird that I never visited there.
So ends Leg 35. I’ve gone about 3 km further to start Leg 36. Which will be completed more quickly…
A map showing my progress is here , a spreadsheet with progress detail is here , and a Google Earth KMZ file is in this Google Drive folder . Present coordinates: 37.406°N, 122.156°W .
<– 2024-11-15_earthwalk-day-1028-15-november-2024-10579-km — 2024-12-02_earthwalk-day-1045-2-december-2024-10741-km-nasa-ames-research-center –>