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).
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.
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