Where are the high voltage power lines in Los Gatos?

Tonight I spent some time on Google maps, looking at the satellite photos and tracing the high voltage power lines that run through Los Gatos.  These power lines are somewhat on the north side of town, following Anne Way, Blossom Valley Drive, cutting across Los Gatos Almaden Road, following Blackwell to the Carlton Avenue park, the Live Oak Manor Playlot, and then cutting across Los Gatos Blvd toward Lark, continuing on through the Wimbleton area and nearly touching highway 85. From there, it follows the freeway and the train tracks into Saratoga.

I became so engrossed in the satellite photos that I got carried away and tracked the lines up through Saratoga, the hills of Cupertino, down through Almaden Valley, Blossom Valley and Santa Teresa areas of San Jose and down to the substation of the Coyote Valley and also came back through the Santa Cruz Mountains near Montevina Road and through the Lexington area. (Since I followed it for a large area, I also blogged about it on my Valley of Hearts Delight blog.)

The pic below is just a photo. But you can see the "live" map, and zoom in and out and see it in the whole by clicking on this link.  I hope you find this map helpful!

Mappng the Boundaries of the Town of Los Gatos: This is the Shape We're In!

Another Los Gatos Map Post!

This time I was trying to find a simplified map of the boundaries or borders for the town of Los Gatos online. As a local Realtor, I'm keenly aware of the way the line jumps in and out, espcially along the side with San Jose's Cambrian Park.  This is also true with the border with Monte Sereno, too. No shortage of weirdness along the Campbell line either, though - one whole section has a Los Gatos mailing address but is actually Campbell (voting, police etc). (The latter refers to the triangular shaped tract of Leep homes which runs between Pollard Road, Quito Road and Hwy 85.)

Little tricks like knowing that a 3 digit address on a house usually means Los Gatos but 4 digits usually means San Jose (but knowing that there are exceptions) can be a big help. This is helpful while driving down the road in a border area. But it's still hard to get a grip on what's where, so I went in search of an online map since the large fold-out types that show the exact borders are too big for my use on the web.

The closest thing I found was on the town's website - a map showing zoning regions (also interesting to see). (In fact, if you'd like to see a VERY detailed version of the Los Gatos neighborhood zoning map, the town has that online too, and you can find it here: Los Gatos Zoning Map.)

Definitely closer - if it's not SO busy that it's nearly impossible to follow.

It strikes me that this really is a very odd shape for a town, but perhaps that would be even clearer if we just looked at the shape, removing the zoning info and the excess words and parts of the map:

What's where? To the left side is the intersection with Monte Sereno, Saratoga, and county pockets. (Saratoga is the upper left corner, on the other side of Quito Road.) On the upper right, it's San Jose's Cambrian Park district or county pockets. And to the bottom it's county with Los Gatos mailing address.

Anyway, next time someone asks you what kind of shape Los Gatos is in, you can think of these figures.

Or perhaps you're looking at them like you would clouds in the sky and trying to come up with a shape. That's what I did, I confess.

Do you see anything in it?

Anything?