Author: bbpeck

Today was our last day at our Rockridge housesit in Oakland, CA. It has been a lovely, relaxing housesit in a beautiful neighborhood in Oakland, which has allowed Bob’s new hip to “settle in.” We have also enjoyed our second sit for the loveable and oh so cute Spot, Rubie, and Kimchi.

We left the Rockridge housesit at 4:00 pm. We walked to the BART station to catch the 55 minute stress free ride to the San Francisco Airport. Once we were at the airport we caught the airport’s Air Train to the Grand Hyatt hotel at the airport to facilitate us catching an 8:00 am flight to Des Moines via Denver tomorrow.

We will be in Des Moines from Tuesday evening through midday Friday when we will start a leisurely drive to Destin, Florida.

It was another BART day for the Pecks. Today we rode the train 3 stops into Oakland ($2.55 each way) to walk to the Oakland Museum of California, which we had read about and was recommended to us by our homeowners. The museum tells the story of California in three parts — history, art, and natural sciences. Since there was a school group going through the natural sciences section, Bob and I spent our time in the first two parts.

The history exhibit started with a section called “Before the Other People Came,” which detailed the lives of the Native Anericans indigenous to California. It then went into the 1540s with the arrival of explorers, the rule of California by Spain and then Mexico, the population explosion in CA with the gold rush and the westward expansion of the US and the railroads, immigration (both us against natives and later us against newer immigrants), and, of course, the role of tourism, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley, as well how California was impacted by natural events like earthquakes as well as national and world crises. It was comprehensive but not overwhelming.

Immigrant issues version 1 — Immigrants against the Native Peoples. With a growing community greedy for land, vigilantes and the state militia mounted a violent campaign against Native Californians. They carried out massacres, captured people as slaves, and removed tribes from their lands.

In 1910, pioneer director D.W. Griffith arrived in CA with a film crew and actors. He made a 17 minute drama called “In Old California.” It was the first film made in Hollywood. Less than 10 years later, movies were one of the leading industries of CA.

Immigration issues version 2 — The US government has been less and then more and now again less welcoming to immigrants.

The art portion of the museum focused on land, people, and creativity. We stumbled on a big head for Bob (not literally, or that could have been pricey).

There was a multi picture exhibit for the Oakland artist Hung Liu (1948-2021). The museum noted that they had worked with her for many years after they acquired their first painting of hers in 1998.

Another part of CA history (and US history) was the internment of Japanese in camps during WWII. One of the 10 prison camps for these individuals was at the eastern base of the Sierra Mountains in Manzanar, CA. Some photographs taken by the photographer Dorothea Lange were exhibited in the art section of the museum.

After we finished perusing the art exhibits, we wandered out to the terrace for more art and good views of downtown Oakland and Lake Merritt. A sign on the terrace noted that when the terraced gardens opened in 1969 they were among the first rooftop gardens at a museum.

The past couple of days have been rainy here, so we have spent time with the pets, talking and texting with family, and finalizing some travel and housesitting plans for the next few months. We now have scheduled pretty much settled through the start of September. We confirmed 2 sits in the past couple of days, one for cats in Florida at the end of May and one for an older dog in Pennsylvania in June.

Today is bright and about as warm as it’s been for a while, so we headed north (away from downtown Oakland and San Francisco) two stops on the BART yellow line to the lovely community of Lafayette. It is a suburban city of about 25,000 on the other side of the Berkeley Hills from Oakland. We spent a good couple of hours or so exploring its pretty downtown and walking around the Lafayette Reservoir.

Mount Diablo Road is the main thoroughfare through Lafayette, where most of the retail and restaurants are located. The following are some pics from along this road. Within a few blocks, they have the options to get groceries at Safeway, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and a local high-end store called Diablo Foods.

While Bob was looking around town, especially the grocery stores, I walked about 25 minutes to the Lafayette Reservoir and then walked the lovely, paved, almost 3 mile trail around the reservoir. It was a popular spot for walkers, dog walkers, and moms pushing strollers.

The reservoir is maintained as a domestic water supply, so swimming and wading are prohibited, but visitors can rent boats, fish (with a permit), and enjoy scenic views of Mount Diablo.

Some pics from the walk —

As we move around, we travel with tech for communicating with family, keeping up with the news, taking and storing photos, and doing the blog. We each have a phone. We share an iPad, although I mostly just use it for the blog, and I have a computer, as I used to do online work. Bob noticed the other day that the iPad was starting to have issues due to lack of available space, and since it has been a number of years (We can’t remember how many.) since we have purchased a new iPad and we have added additional memory a few times already, Bob decided it was time for a new one.

The closest Apple Store to the current house was in Berkeley, about 5 miles away — a 30 minute bus ride or almost a 2 hour walk. We decided to ride the bus to the store. On the way, we went down busy College Avenue that runs from the University of California campus all the way through downtown Rockridge. It is a mix of retail, restaurants, and culture.

At our bus stop, Bob went to the Apple Store to buy the new iPad, get the data transferred, etc., and then would catch the bus back. I got off the bus and immediately began the long walk back to the house, as I just can’t deal with tech stores and pricey purchases. My walk only took a little over 90 minutes, and I beat Bob back. The walk was mostly through residential areas, but I found a few things that caught my eye.

This morning I headed off to Panoramic Hill in Claremont Canyon to see the views and then check out some of the local book stores on College Avenue as I walked back to Rockridge through Berkeley. Bob went to Trader Joe’s to pick up some groceries for dinner tonight, but more on that later.

Claremont Canyon is 208 acres of preserved land above Berkeley, land that once served as an important communication and transportation route. In 1858 part of a transcontinental telegraph line was strung through the canyon, and in the early 1860s, Pony Express riders carried mail along this route. In the early 20th century, the canyon was used for cattle grazing, dairy farming, and minor quarrying. Today, the land is set aside for hiking and horseback riding with views west to San Francisco Bay.

A few pics from my walk up to the top of Panoramic Hill and then back down into Berkeley.

Every Friday, our homeowners are the neighborhood delivery site for Sea Forager, a sustainable fish delivery service. The seafood is delivered about 3:00 pm into a cooler at the top of the driveway, and subscribers have until 8:00 pm to pick up their order. About 9:00 pm, the homeowners (us while we’re here), remove any packages of fish that weren’t picked up. The homeowners (us) can either eat it themselves or offer it to other neighbors.

Yesterday there was one package that was not picked up. It was enough shrimp for a meal for two, so Bob is making us shrimp pasta tonight. Not a bad perk!

As I said yesterday, this is our second housesit in Rockridge for two really great homeowners (one’s a cookbook writer and editor) and two of the cutest dogs you’ll meet plus their cat, Kimchi, who we are trying to re-win over. It helps that he likes his food, and we are his current source!

Rockridge is a cute residential neighborhood in Oakland, just south of Berkeley, with tree-lined streets, cute markets and restaurants, craftsman bungalows (many built in the 1920s), and great access to public transportation into San Francisco and both San Francisco and Oakland airports.

Many of the houses are also attractively landscaped, and I love looking at all the different plants and flowers.

Speaking of flowers, our homeowners are off to Amsterdam for a river cruise to see the tulips.

Last Friday the 10th, Bob and I traveled four stops north on the yellow BART line to the Oakland suburb of Rockridge to have dinner and a walk through of the home of our next Oakland area housesit. This is a couple that we did a housesit for 9 years ago shortly after we had sold our condo. We took to them and they to us, and although the stars haven’t aligned until now for us to sit for them again, we have kept in touch. It was lovely to catch up over a home cooked meal of fresh salmon and veggies, with a cherry cobbler made from sour cherries from Wisconsin. One of the homeowners is a fellow Wisconsinite.

This weekend we ran some errands and started prepping the West Oakland house for the homeowners return. We left about 4:00 pm on Monday after 3 walks with the dogs, and the homeowners returned later that evening. Peaches and Whiskey were a tough duo to say goodbye to. I don’t think either of us will forget Whiskey’s verbal expressions of excitement when it was time for a walk.

We just started our Rockridge housesit about 11 am today, so Bob got us a room at the Marriott City Center in downtown Oakland for two nights. It was a super relaxing 1.5 days with free breakfasts, happy hour wine each night, and sufficient appetizers and dessert to make 2 free dinners for us. The fitness facility on site was also awesome.

More on our current housesit tomorrow. We’ll be here until late afternoon on 4/27.

Since we are housesitting, our time in Oakland has been mostly focused on the dogs and the house. The dogs can be chill when not being walked, but they also like to play together and with their toys.

We also hear and see the BART train in the house, although it is not loud and definitely doesn’t keep us up at night.

Yesterday after Bob did his 2.2 mile walk. I went out to try to see some new areas around the neighborhood. I ended up at Jack London Square. This area is Oakland’s only publicly accessible mixed-use waterfront and marina area. It is named for the author Jack London, who was born in San Francisco in 1876 and is just a 30 minute walk from the house.

The plaque under the statue of Jack London includes a quote from him, which reads, “I would rather be ashes than dust. I should rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stilled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

A very bold quote, and one I agree with in terms of living versus existing. It should be noted that Mr. London achieved great success as an author and died at the age of 40 from dysentery and late-stage alcoholism, so he didn’t become a “sleepy and permanent planet.”

Today, Bob and I took the BART one stop into Oakland (away from San Francisco) to walk around lovely Lake Merritt, a 150-acre tidal lagoon, known as the first official US wildlife refuge. We had walked around the lake during a prior sit in Oakland nine years ago. It’s still very pretty.

These are various views from around the lake. The trail around the lake is 3.1 miles.

After a quiet Easter in Oakland with a trip to the gym, a couple of dog walks, and a walk to the local Farmer’s Market, including a couple of tasty pastries, Bob and I decided to take the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) one stop over to the Embarcadero station in San Francisco. This was a super easy trip, as the West Oakland station is literally a walk across two parking lots from the house and we had our pick of trains going west across the bay, as they all stop at the Embarcadero Station.

The Embarcadero section of San Francisco lies along San Francisco Bay and is probably most famously known for the Ferry Building, the various piers, and Fisherman’s Wharf. We saw a bit of the waterfront but also checked out a few new (to us) parks in the area as we continue to increase Bob’s walking stability and endurance.

We also stumbled on North Park which had a number of sculptures.

Today, I walked about two miles along the busy Oakland Port to the Middle Harbor Shoreline Park on the coast of the San Francisco Bay. The park is a 38-acre waterfront park on the site of the former Oakland Naval Supply Depot, with panoramic views of San Francisco Bay, the Oakland Port, and the San Francisco skyline. It was an easy walk along 7th street which is the first cross street from the house. The walk is on sidewalks until you get into the heart of the port area and then it becomes part of the San Francisco Bay Trail. There is an observation tower at the far end of the park.

The park was quiet but not without visitors as a school class was having an outing there.

When the park was the Oakland Naval Supply Depot, it was a 541 acre facility that was equipped with dozens of warehouses with a combined floor area of over 7,000,000 square feet. The depot served as a supply center for the Navy’s Pacific Fleet from WWII until 1998.

No fooling, I’ve actually gotten out a bit in Oakland, although the first couple of days were mostly spent getting settled, getting into a walking routine with the dogs and picking up groceries. The closest grocery (Safeway or Target) is about a 50 minute walk from the house, so I tried to pick up a little more than I normally would. There are plenty of convenience stores around, but they mostly offer snack foods and most look a little sketchy. Since Bob’s not here, I have played within my cooking wheelhouse, which pretty much consists of roasting vegetables and/or microwaving meals. Since the homeowners offered what was left in their fridge, I roasted broccoli one night and summer squash the next.

I always like to research a bit about the places we land. This is some of what I have learned via Wikipedia. Oakland, California, lies in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay area. It is the county seat of Alameda County and has a population of approximately 441,000. The port of Oakland is the busiest port in Northern California. Historically, Oakland has been a focal point of the West Coast blues and jazz scenes and it is the city where the Black Panther Party was founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. The party was created to protect Black neighborhoods from police brutality.

Yesterday and today I walked into downtown Oakland, which consists of crossing under highway 980 from the West Oakland area where the housesit is. Downtown Oakland also seems a little rough, but it has some nice buildings and a couple of museums. As always, I visited the central library (not architecturally interesting) and went into the free and very small Black Panther Party Museum. I learned a few things but was hoping for more information on the origin of the party. Some photos below from my outings (along with another of the dogs). Looking forward to having Bob arrive Friday evening.