San Mateo County, California

(Editors Note: In the category of "What was I thinking!" Palo Alto is not in San Mateo County, it is in Santa Clara County. Separate correct posts will appear for both California counties.)

When California was drawn as one of my feature states of 2009 I experienced a flash of disappointment. Maybe I was secretly hoping for Alaska or Maine, not my backyard. That’s not to say that I am short of opportunities to venture into new territory in the Golden State.

I contemplated various options: The high of the Sierra Nevada’s bookended with the low of Death Valley? Hiking the John Muir Trail? Hop-scotching from beach to beach surfboard in tow? Panning for gold? All would give me an incredible “California” experience but none felt quite right. I settled on all of the above. Echoing my quest of the previous year, I opted to visit the 58 counties in the state. Like my 50 States in ‘08 project; I’ll spend a minimum of one hour in each county and engage in some activity or commerce. I’m especially interested in California history, so expect a few historical society visits. We Californians live a great deal of our lives outdoors, so I’ll slather on the sunscreen & engage in several activities, maybe even the surfing lessons.

More than a third of the counties in my state are within a 2 hour drive of my San Francisco home and I’m looking forward to a leisurely exploration. The nether regions of Modoc and Inyo counties require some planning.

My first official California county visit was San Mateo. This peninsula is home to 712,000 ethnically diverse and predominantly Democratic residents. Stanford University is in Palo Alto, where Hewlett Packard, the symbolic if not actual founders for high tech’s Silicon Valley began in a garage. Redwood City is the county seat. My most frequented airport, San Francisco International, lies in San Mateo County.



Wedged between the Pacific Ocean and the San Francisco Bay, the peninsula of San Mateo County is capped by the City of San Francisco, with Santa Clara County to the south.

My sister-in-law and I had lunch at Café Sophia in Palo Alto. This Afghani restaurant and coffee roastery is also a stop on my virtual tour of Afghanistan. I’ll write more about Afghan food in a future post. Our meal was delicious; we enjoyed the décor and had a great time chatting with each other. Luckily we had a great deal to talk about because the service was abysmal and we sat there forever. Oh well, maybe that’s the Afghan way?

Check out the Brave New Traveler post on virtual travel: http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2009/01/09/virtual-travelling-for-the-rooted-hobo/ I agree 100 percent with his approach of utilizing Wikipedia and Google Maps but personally include a greater focus on the literature, music and movies of a destination.