2009 Meeting in Ames Research Center

I attended a review at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, in September 2009.  This page chronicles some of my after-hours activities.

Note -- click on the thumbnails below to see larger images.
Note -- markers below can be found on this interactive Google map.

The Flight West on Tuesday, September 8^th, 2009

I had an early departure for a non-stop flight on Virgin America from Dulles to San Francisco (SFO)  With a window seat near the front of the plane and clear weather once we reached the Rockies, there were many opportunities to take photos of the amazing landscape. Virgin America provides an interactive Google map showing the location of the plane, which makes identifying the features in the photos much easier. The flight path followed I-70 through Colorado and Utah and then US 6 through Nevada.  The central section of western Colorado is dominated by the Roan Plateau and the numerous rivers that have carved large canyons in the plateau. I-70 tracks the Colorado River in western Colorado, and Parachute Creek (left photo; Marker A on this interactive Google map) and Roan Creek (right photo; Marker B) join the Colorado. Because it was early in the day, the Sun cast dramatic shadows in the canyons. Note the different colors depending on the depth from the top of the cliffs.
    The view changed as we crossed into Utah with vast stretches of desert with interesting colors. The Price River (left photo; Marker C) works its way across eastern Utah before joining the Green River in Grey Canyon. Surprisingly the water is flowing from left to right in the photo. The Green River is the main tributary for the Colorado and flows through spectacular wilderness in eastern Utah. I had photographed it on an earlier flight to San Francisco near Ouray, Utah. About 30 miles to the west, the San Rafael River (right photo; Marker D) is another tributary of the Green River. To the left is a photo (Marker E) of the empty landscape in Millard County, Utah, near the Nevada border. The whitish feature in the center right of the photo is Pine Valley Hardpan (dry lake). Route 21 is the road at the center bottom of the image.

The section of Nevada near US 6 is really empty. The right photo (Marker F) was taken near the (ghost) town of Lockes, Nevada. The large circular feature is called Butterfield Marsh, but it looks more like a dry lake than a marsh. The Railroad Valley Wildlife Management Area is at the far edge of the feature. As a final treat, we flew just south of Mono Lake in California.

San Francisco, Tuesday, September 8^th, 2009

Since the flight landed at 10:30 am (local time), there was time to explore some of San Francisco. Having been there before, I decided to do something a little different -- go to the beach. In San Francisco, that means the end of the Golden Gate Park (left photo; Marker H). I walked down to put my feet in the very cold water. Swimming is not recommended, but it appeared that some teenagers had gone in.  I had lunch at the Beach Chalet, which has a great view of the beach and Pacific Ocean. After lunch I wandered around Seal Rocks State Park (right photo; Marker I) including Sutro Heights Park and the Sutro Baths. The much photographed (Flickr has more than 10,000 photos) remains of the Baths can be seen behind me, the Cliff House is at the left of the photo, and Seals Rocks are in the background. The Golden Gate Bridge (left photo; Marker J) is only a few miles to the north, and it is one of the few major bridges in the country that welcomes pedestrians (although the Woodrow Wilson Bridge south of Washington, DC, now has a bike/pedestrian path). It was much more crowded than on my earlier walks in 2000 and 2006, and all the pedestrians and bikes (most seemingly rented from Blazing Saddles) were now on the bay side of the bridge. As usual, it was noisy and windy, and the bridge noticeably moved when the trucks went by. There was a clear view of the city, and there were perhaps a dozen porpoises visible in the water near the bridge. There were no large vessels to be seen, but there were several sail boats taking advantage of the breeze, including a sleek racing yacht (right photo) headed for the Pacific. From the sail number and the name on the side, it was easy to browse the web and learn that this is a very competitive racer.

I then headed to Mountain View, checked into my hotel, and had dinner at Taqueria Los Charros, an inexpensive Mexican restaurant downtown. I had considered going to a Giants game that night, but correctly decided that I couldn't stay awake that late.

Wednesday, September 9^th

For a relatively small town, the center of Mountain View has an amazing number of restaurants on its main drag -- Castro Street. On Wednesday five of us went to the Shana Thai Restaurant (Marker K), a short distance from Castro St. I ordered the tamarind prawns, which looked almost too good to eat (left photo). They were delicious.