Day 32: Berkeley & More

It was delightfully cool today (comparatively) and I got a lot done. Most of the day was spent north of and then into Berkeley proper. I got started on some of the Oakland stuff but I'm realizing this Bay Area list is really going to take a good number of days to get through. After Oakland, we'll be dropping down south towards San Jose and then further south. Then I'll be coming back up via the coast for San Francisco area stuff. Splitting up the Bay Area in this way should give me and Sparkle a decent break from daily city traffic. Tomorrow is Labor Day so hopefully traffic will be light and help me navigate a lot of cityness.

The dogs and I got to check out Point Isabel today in Richmond. We spent more than an hour there (a lot of valuable shooting time but it was a great place). The water was too cold for Nik to swim much but there were 21 acres of running room -- and no real signs of critters in the bushes or gopher holes. There's even a "Sit and Stay Cafe", as well as "Mudpuppies" (a dog wash & toy shop) right there in the parking area. Here's some more info about this place:
http://www.mudpuppys.com/ptisabel.html
http://www.bahiker.com/eastbayhikes/ptisabel.html

A huge fading-away old sign in Rodeo:



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I love this inventive use of the donut shape -- this store in Richmond:



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This sign appeared to read "Bab's Donuts" is also in Richmond. It most likely related to the business below which is still somewhat a convenience store but mostly seems to be engaged in small-scale wholesaling for lunchwagons and that sort of thing. Maybe the sign was installed wrong? The arrow points towards the road.



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Berkely has many examples of storybook style houses -- and since I don't have a section at my website for them, I'll just throw some examples in here. If you're interested in these kinds of places, there's a great website and book about them:
http://storybookers.com/

Here are a couple of great, giant houses on Spruce St:













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A couple other smaller scale houses on Ross Street:



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A fascinating modern house in Berkeley -- it's nicknamed the "Fish House". But more properly, it's known as the Tsui House:
http://www.tdrinc.com/tsuihs.html







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And lastly, from Oakland, a couple more signs. This one is at "Original Steele's" (a still operating scuba shop):



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And this one is a fun twist on the Rent-a-Wreck car rental concept: