Walking around Sunnyvale ~ Monday, January 07, 2013

The other day, I drove to work, and was repaid for my unenlightened modal choice by my car breaking down. A repair shop was across the street, so I left it in their care and walked to the not-too-distant Sunnyvale CalTrain station, passing a few interesting and odd things along the way.

This old house is on a busy arterial street, and seems to be a remainder from Santa Clara Valley's agricultural past. Seasonally, there is a pumpkin patch in front, and there were a few pumpkins still in the front yard.

There were other signs of activity, but I'd guess that nobody actually lives here. From another angle, I noticed a gaggle of geese on the grounds.

Later I came across this garage, not very notable, except that I'm building a model of one like it, so worth a picture.

This traffic control hardware wouldn't be very interesting on an actual streetcorner, but in fact it's under an overpass, and is probably left over from before the overpass was built, and once controlled traffic signals for the intersection and grade crossing that the overpass replaced. It's along a useful walking-route shortcut to the station.

Modelers always need to know about roofs, since they are so much more prominent in models than in real life, but these ones were conveniently located below eye-level.

At the station itself, I noticed an old suitcase stuck in the bushes along the platform. It was in fair shape, so I pulled it out. Something rattled around inside. Slightly nervous of finding something gruesome inside, I opened it up, and found a bunch of old vinyl records.

Nothing worth taking (especially since I don't even have a record player anymore). Just weird. It's all back in the bushes if anyone wants them.

I still don't have the #@!&$ car back.