A quick compendium of recent adventures tracking down the historic homes, forgotten vineyards, mission meccas, and pioneer cemeteries hidden amongst the high tech clutter of California’s Silicon Valley.

Sites Conquered Thus Far:

(Each with numerous photos, panoramas, occasional structure from motion possibilities for future 3D modelling, etc, because I just can’t stop myself from mass collecting data everywhere I go and then get fussy that there’s no good way to share it)

• The Lick Mansion & Granary (literally tucked away in the middle of an apartment complex, empty)
  • 
  • 
• Frenchman’s Tower
• The remnants of the monastic vineyard at Steven’s Creek State Park
  • [Instagram url=https://www.instagram.com/p/BJquKy0AviL/]
• Mission Santa Cruz (the least impressive of the missions)
• Mission San Carlos Borromeo del río Carmelo (the most impressive of the missions)
  • 
• Capitola Cement Ship
• Mission San Juan Bautista (my favorite of the missions, thus far)
  • [Instagram url=https://www.instagram.com/p/BIgOOhmgQHT/]
• Cypress Lawn Cemetery
  • [Instagram url=https://www.instagram.com/p/BKHZ725A4DY/]
• Hearst Castle (not quite Silicon Valley anymore but oh well)
• Alamere Falls (non-archaeological BUT did lead to a lot of fun research into the historic first sightings of San Francisco Bay and Drake’s Bay/Sir Francis Drake routes etc)

Eventually: make a useful map of all of these sites…..

More Media to follow one rainy day…

To conquer soon:

• Mission Santa Clara
• The Almaden Quicksilver mine and cemetery
• Follow the full retinue of Spanish survey site markers up the peninsula
• The East Bay “Wall”

A Resolution—by the end of next year, have a solid system in place for auto-depositing all adventure data into a useful spot the same day or week as said adventure). (vs. backdating or mass listing things ;) ). Working on work flow.