Exploring Palo Alto on foot

Well, worried reader, these are unprecedented times. It's week 3 of the lockdown here, week 4 of working from home, and we find ourselves settling into something of a rhythm. Things are pretty comfortable here, and while the usual set of adventures are on hold for now, we've found ourselves going out for a fairly long walk every evening, and exploring Palo Alto more as a result.

Obviously history has a relatively recent starting point here, and the lack of stone buildings, plus the prevalence of earthquakes, means that there isn't anything old around. This doesn't seem to have stopped the Palo Alto Historical Association, who appear to have had a fad of dropping plaques all over the place a few decades back:

There are no housing estates to speak of in Palo Alto - it's mostly individual properties that have grown up independently, giving the place quite a folksy tone. It's good fund to wander the streets and see the different characters of the different neighbourhoods. For example, where we are in North Downtown, houses are pretty packed in and don't tend to have gardens. Over the other side of University Avenue tends to be bigger houses, with nice gardens, and further west towards Alma Street the houses change character again: smaller, but still with the gardens, and with a decidedly eclectic edge.

And that eclectic edge extends to the occupants too. We were walking back down Ramona Street during our walk last night as the clock struck 7pm. At that point, local residents came out of their houses, stood in the streets and started banging pots and pans together. Obviously I had to ask them what they hell was going on; apparently it's something they do there to keep spirits up during these odd times. Fair enough!

There's also a famous art installation up University Avenue, consisting of three massive crows (they're about 8 feet tall):

There's also been an outbreak of bears here; folks are putting bears in their windows for kids to find ("going on a bear hunt") when they go out. We don't have a bear, so I'm proud to announce that the beanies are back!

It's also been a week of deliveries. We've signed up to what rather haughtily describes itself as a "craft meat delivery service", so the freezer's pretty well stocked:

Unfortunately the ice cream didn't arrive, so there's a case open with Fedex about that. I'm kinda hoping it doesn't arrive now it's been delayed!

So overall, in the midst of these very troubled times, things are relatively normal for us. Now, where's that ice cream got to...