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In Which I Return to the Albany Bulb
Jun. 24th, 2018 11:36 pmI haven't bicycled as much these last few years. The original reason was my urologist suggesting I lay off it for a while. That never turned out to be relevant, but in the meantime I got into hiking.
But then Friday night, K. was looking for some adventure to celebrate her new ability to walk around in a boot. And after much looking at local parks and bus schedules and such we finally came to the conclusion that Richmond Inner Harbor would be a nice trip for her on Saturday, because it was accessible in about 45 minutes from our house and has a nice central green.
Meanwhile, this got me excited about all the areas along the Bay that I hadn't seen in a while, so I decided to bike on my own on Saturday from the Berkeley Marina to ... however far north I got, while K. took her more public-transit-oriented adventure.
The heart of my day's adventure was a ramble out along the Albany Bulb, which I haven't visited in some years, since back when it used to be a derelict junkyard heavily inhabited by the homeless. But now, since Albany paid all of the homeless to move on (to Berkeley, of course), it's become part of the Eastshore Regional Park, so I wanted to see how it had changed.
The answer is: all for the better. The park is now well-used and not eerie-empty (or scary-homeless) like it was before, but it still retains all of its industrial and artistic charm.
Along the south shore there was a lot of concrete everywhere, which is what industries used to dump here, and lots of it was painted in various different ways. On the north shore instead there was wacky sculpture made out of various bits of wood and who knows what else. Some of it was really beautiful. And, out at the west, the rocks that encircle the lagoon at the end of the bulb were entirely traversable, albeit with some jumping from rock to rock and hoping I didn't end up in the water.
It was all around a neat experience.
After that, I ended up in the Richmond Harbor where I did a bit more than an hour's writing. I've been missing my 2 D&D histories a week schedule lately, but at least I got one done (and a new Mechanics & Meeple for the week) while sitting out at the ever-beautiful Harbor.
Ironically (and sadly) K. didn't make it out to the Inner Harbor. She hurt her foot from too much walking in her shoe, and ended up spending the entire weekend couchbound. (We made a scooter-assisted trip to dinner on Sunday night).
On the way home I took the Richmond Greenway to the Ohlone Greenway.
Sadly, the Richmond Greenway has continued to deteriorate. This seems to be Richmond's attitude toward pathways like this: get the money to work on them, fail to finish them, damage usage by the lack of connectivity, and then let them rot. So, the Richmond Greenway has always been troubled by trash, but this time it was filled with it at various points.
There were two points of light:
First, there's a various nice playground that's been constructed on the western half of the Greenway. It had lots of nice wooden play equipment and also a wooden pavilion with some tables. It was well-used (and about the only place on the Richmond Greenway being used).
Second, Richmond closed one of the Greenway's troublesome gaps: the connection to the Ohlone Greenway. It's not the bridge soaring over San Pablo that was promised a decade ago, nor is it the nice creekside path promised five years ago. But it is a path that runs to straight to across the road from the Ohlone Greenway and has a HAWK light that turns almost immediately when you get there, allowing easy transit. So, yay.
(The gap in the middle of the Richmond Greenway remains one of the five worst bicycling gaps in the Bay Area; if Richmond doesn't fix it, the Greenway will one day end up an abandoned wasteland like the WIldcat Creek Trail to the north, which literally lies in three disconnected segments and looks like a post-apocalyptic landscape as a result.)
Anywho, from there it was a nice ride up the Ohlone Greenway, which is kept very clean, and has improved waysigns throughout Albany.
But then Friday night, K. was looking for some adventure to celebrate her new ability to walk around in a boot. And after much looking at local parks and bus schedules and such we finally came to the conclusion that Richmond Inner Harbor would be a nice trip for her on Saturday, because it was accessible in about 45 minutes from our house and has a nice central green.
Meanwhile, this got me excited about all the areas along the Bay that I hadn't seen in a while, so I decided to bike on my own on Saturday from the Berkeley Marina to ... however far north I got, while K. took her more public-transit-oriented adventure.
The heart of my day's adventure was a ramble out along the Albany Bulb, which I haven't visited in some years, since back when it used to be a derelict junkyard heavily inhabited by the homeless. But now, since Albany paid all of the homeless to move on (to Berkeley, of course), it's become part of the Eastshore Regional Park, so I wanted to see how it had changed.
The answer is: all for the better. The park is now well-used and not eerie-empty (or scary-homeless) like it was before, but it still retains all of its industrial and artistic charm.
Along the south shore there was a lot of concrete everywhere, which is what industries used to dump here, and lots of it was painted in various different ways. On the north shore instead there was wacky sculpture made out of various bits of wood and who knows what else. Some of it was really beautiful. And, out at the west, the rocks that encircle the lagoon at the end of the bulb were entirely traversable, albeit with some jumping from rock to rock and hoping I didn't end up in the water.
It was all around a neat experience.
After that, I ended up in the Richmond Harbor where I did a bit more than an hour's writing. I've been missing my 2 D&D histories a week schedule lately, but at least I got one done (and a new Mechanics & Meeple for the week) while sitting out at the ever-beautiful Harbor.
Ironically (and sadly) K. didn't make it out to the Inner Harbor. She hurt her foot from too much walking in her shoe, and ended up spending the entire weekend couchbound. (We made a scooter-assisted trip to dinner on Sunday night).
On the way home I took the Richmond Greenway to the Ohlone Greenway.
Sadly, the Richmond Greenway has continued to deteriorate. This seems to be Richmond's attitude toward pathways like this: get the money to work on them, fail to finish them, damage usage by the lack of connectivity, and then let them rot. So, the Richmond Greenway has always been troubled by trash, but this time it was filled with it at various points.
There were two points of light:
First, there's a various nice playground that's been constructed on the western half of the Greenway. It had lots of nice wooden play equipment and also a wooden pavilion with some tables. It was well-used (and about the only place on the Richmond Greenway being used).
Second, Richmond closed one of the Greenway's troublesome gaps: the connection to the Ohlone Greenway. It's not the bridge soaring over San Pablo that was promised a decade ago, nor is it the nice creekside path promised five years ago. But it is a path that runs to straight to across the road from the Ohlone Greenway and has a HAWK light that turns almost immediately when you get there, allowing easy transit. So, yay.
(The gap in the middle of the Richmond Greenway remains one of the five worst bicycling gaps in the Bay Area; if Richmond doesn't fix it, the Greenway will one day end up an abandoned wasteland like the WIldcat Creek Trail to the north, which literally lies in three disconnected segments and looks like a post-apocalyptic landscape as a result.)
Anywho, from there it was a nice ride up the Ohlone Greenway, which is kept very clean, and has improved waysigns throughout Albany.