Bedbug Registry:
Los Gatos is Clean!

A friend sent me a link to a Bedbug Registry. I knew, from a conversation that I'd had recently with Janet Thrasher of Thrasher Termite & Pest Control in Los Gatos, that bedbugs were on the rise and the subject of much discussion (and action).

But I didn't know that there was a "Bedbug Registry".

Did you?

Well, have no fears, Los Gatos appears to be a bedbug free zone. At least from my look at the registry a moment ago.

Planning a trip? Maybe you will want to stay right here and take in one of our resort-like hotels or motels!

Parks and Poison Oak

Creek embankments are cool and inviting on a warm spring or summer day.  It is very tempting to inch your way down to the stream, toss away the flip flops and let the gentle current sweep past your dusty, dry toes.

But please be careful. 

Everything is very, very green this time of year.  The grass and live oaks and scrub all tangle together with thistles and berries and vines.  Among them, blending in just perfectly, is poison oak.

I've been really lucky in my life: I've never been snared by this itch-inducing plant. But my older brother, Steve, used to chase after golf balls into the rough at Pasatiempo and often came back with much more than a ball or two.  He would become terribly swollen up, each occurance worse than the one before. The Calomine Lotion was slathered on generously and dried into a crusty nastiness that I will never forget.  He looked awful, and felt worse. 

Somehow I just never got it. Maybe it's that I don't play golf - am not supposed to due to some rods in my back for scoliosis.  And in Spring I am plagued with hayfever - green things are not as tempting to me as to others.  So avoiding contact with the tall green everything always seemed to be in my best interest.

My better half, Jim, is a volunteer Parks Commissioner for the town of Los Gatos and he spends a great deal of time in parks.  On Sunday we went through Belgatos (again) and this time, Jim taught me how to identify poison oak. I'd always heard "leaves of three, let it be" and knew that in the autumn, the leaves turn a bright red. But I really didn't know, other that that, what it looked like.

Immediately prior to my lesson in identifying poison oak, I allowed Bella, our dog, too close to the stuff and he hollared, "don't you see the poison oak?" Apparently I was tempting fate and Jim realized I was clueless.   He made sure, right then and there, that I got a lesson in how to recognize it.  (Our vet has confirmed that dogs can, and do, carry the poison oak plant oils home, an amazing way to infect everyone quickly.  Jim pictured our pooch spreading it to every member of the family.) 

What I then noticed was most cruel: the poison oak was interwoven with wild blackberry bushes on the creek banks.

Talk about a tease.

Now I know what to look for. I want you to be equally well armed. Have a good, long study of these photos and make sure you don't ever get too close to a plant that looks like this - no matter how many berries beckon you, no matter how delicious that water looks on a warm day.

It's not worth it. Ask my brother.

Especially Open

Trains in Los Gatos

On a quiet night, anywhere in Los Gatos you can probably hear the occasional, faint sound of a train rumbling on by down on Winchester Boulevard, or perhaps as it crosses Southewest Expressway at Bascom.  It used to be that the train extended into downtown Los Gatos, and, in fact, the trainline ran all the way to Santa Cruz in one direction and San Francisco in the other, right through Los Gatos.  The land once claimed by the trains is now filled with cars and constitutes the town of Los Gatos's largest parking lot, set perfectly between two busy roads: University Avenue and North Santa Cruz Avenue.

With the congestion and danger of driving on the weavy-windy Highway 17 to the beach, having the train route re-established from Silicon Valley to Santa Cruz may be a good idea and it is not an infrequent debate. At a minimum, it should be on the table for discussion - even if the route didn't go directly through downtown Los Gatos anymore.

I would agree.  Between overcrowding on the roads and the crazy way in which some people drive (you'd think it were a video game with no real consequences if a turn were missed!), plus the cost of gas and concerns for the environment, I believe that the train talks should be revived.

People in Santa Cruz County don't want the commute to be too convenient, though. And so there are many protests each time a discussion surfaces about a tunnel under "the hill" or a train going over it again.

I'm not a City Planner and I can't tell you the ins and outs of the whole discussion. Truthfully, I wouldn't even know who to ask about it, either.

Meanwhile, though, in Los Gatos we can continue to instill a simple love of trains.  At the corner of Blossom Hill Road and University Avenues, Los Gatos enjoys two interconnected parks: Vasona Lake County Park and Oak Meadow Park (belonging to the town).  One of the unique features of these parks is the Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad, which runs from one park to the next. A friend of mine from southern California, Jay Freeman, brought to my attention an ad for a video about how the railroad works - and the ad is a video of the train in action itself. 

In addition to the practical reasons for considering the train's reestablishment between here and the coast, this video clip reminds me of one more: riding the train is fun.