Livermore California

My wonderful advisor decided I should do some work with some people at Lawrence Livermore, so I got an unexpected winter vacation away from upstate New York.

My flight out was uneventful; luckily both flights were delayed a similar amount of time. The Atlanta airport is huge, it has a dedicated metro system just connecting the various departure areas.

I had a nice view of the Bay Area when the plane came in for a landing. I figured out the rental car situation, even though by this point it was quite late Eastern Standard Time. More interesting was figuring out the various controls of the car, which was a silver Chevy "Classic". But I eventually was on my way, and even got to drive on the infamous I-238, which is almost as hated in the road-geek community as I-99.

The weather was "cold." The word cold is in quotes because to the locals highs of 50°F in mid-January are considered unusually frigid. By comparison the temperature in Ithaca the day I am writing this wasn't expected to get beyond the single digits.

The weather was also very foggy. Thick fog that never really went away, it just moved from hill to hill. It was very pleasant when the sun came out. The plant life was very lush and full of flowers for it being January. I still find the sight of fully-ripe lemon trees in people's front yards to be a bit disconcerting.

Luckily I missed most of the horrible rain that was giving the southern part of the state such problems.

When the fog clears the area is quite warm and pretty. Here's a picture of the view out the window from my hotel. The little dots on the hill are cows. The next hill over has a vineyard on it. The major highway in the foreground is I-580 (yes it is quite noisy).
Cow covered hill
Luckily my hotel has high-speed internet, and also a small kitchen area so I can make some food without having to eat out every night. Besides being jarred a bit by the radio stations all starting with K, things have been fairly normal.
Back to winter travels