Inside the entrance to the San Cristobal mineshaft, dug in 1866.

The theme of local exploration continued over our Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Eager to avoid the “Black Friday” crowds and shopping (did I mention that I’m allergic to malls?) and knowing that we’d be stuffing our faces with rich foods on Thanksgiving itself, I had planned a short family hike for that Friday. We’d go to Almaden Quicksilver county park – a favorite of mine and a mere 10-minute drive from home – and hike out to the cool San Cristobal mineshaft, followed by a picnic lunch. Lunch would be turkey sandwiches, of course.

We lucked out with the weather, which was about 70ºF, with clear skies and just a hint of breeze. Wonderful hiking weather! That morning we got together our packs, picnic lunches, flashlights and headlamps for the dark mineshaft. I brought along my backpacking stove and other items to brew up some hot tea, but then forgot to pack the fuel can I’d gotten out. As it turned out, it was too warm for anyone to want hot tea anyway so I lucked out there.

The park was a lot busier than normal because of the holiday weekend, but not objectionably so. I’ve not hiked much in the past year so I was definitely feeling out of shape, but still it wasn’t a difficult hike, and the exercise was appreciated. Our route took us from the Wood Road parking lot trailhead and out to the old rotary furnace structures, then along Mine Hill. At Bull Run, we took the trail down to the San Cristobal mineshaft, our main goal for the hike. I always enjoy visiting this unique remnant of the Old West, and feeling the warm, damp air coming from the deep tunnels below.

When we were done at the mine, we reversed course back up Mine Hill to Bull Run, where we had a relaxing lunch at one of the picnic tables. After eating, it was just a matter of backtracking to the trailhead, where we arrived just as the sun had ducked below the mountains to the West. That concluded our nice afternoon of hiking in the park… And we’d successfully avoided Black Friday for another year, woohoo!

Small Gallery of Photos from the Hike

In my previous post, Top 10 Things to do Between Trips, “local exploration” was 2nd on the list. Exploring the local (and not-so-local) backroads has been a favorite hobby of mine over the last 15 years, so I thought I should delve into it a little more here.

No matter where I have lived, I’ve always been attracted to interesting locations off the beaten path. Malls, shopping centers, and similar urban chain locations are what attract most people, but they’ve never held much interest to me. In fact, I like to say that I am allergic to malls. But I enjoy mom & pop stores, traditional old downtown areas, rural backroads, and hidden gems. I like seeing the history of an area too.

Exploring the local backroads became a common way of spending my lunch break at various jobs. Rather than sit at my desk or at a fast food place eating my lunch all the time, I found it was much more fun to get out and actually do something. To be sure, there were still plenty of business lunches and ones at my desk, but it’s nice to get away when it’s an option.

It’s also true that most people are totally oblivious to their local offerings, or at least the ones that are even slightly obscure. I’ve discovered that people are very often totally unaware of parks that are in their own neighborhoods, much less a few miles away. And more obscure sights? Few indeed will know of those.

Here in the south SF Bay Area, we have all sorts of things that are guaranteed to bring surprised reactions when you tell someone about them. There are seasonal waterfalls that tens of thousands of residents are unaware of, probably within easy walking or biking distance of their homes. More inexplicably, there are slabs of the Berlin Wall in a small industrial park. There’s a miniature, functional oil derrick in the parking lot of a real estate company. There, it used to extract a couple of barrels of oil per day. There’s a New England clapboard house that was cut from lumber and shipped from the east coast around Cape Horn back around 1851. There are mine shafts, trellises, hundred year-old steam train water tanks, and mummies. The list goes on and on.

So as I said in my Top 10 List, in my experience I have found that exploring the local backroads can be very rewarding. If you can’t make that epic road trip to Moab or Death Valley or Baja or whatever, for whatever reason, the local option is usually a good fall-back. Whether you’re short on time or money or your 4×4 needs some work, or your kid is in school, or even if you just need a short shakedown run, you can probably still get away for a few hours if you really want to. And until you’ve seen it all, who knows what you’ll find?

Which brings us to New Almaden. Once a small mining town, it’s now just a tiny, obscure corner of sprawling San Jose. While much of San Jose is very urban, with nearly a million people, New Almaden remains blissfully rural and untouched to a great degree. After the traditional post-trip letdown from my Mountain Rendezvous 2013 road trip set in, I reacted by immediately making plans for a “Sunday drive” around New Almaden with the family. It would only cost a few bucks worth of gas, and a couple of hours of our time. From previous exploration, I was very familiar with a lot of interesting history there, so I’d act as tour guide for my wife and daughter.

Below you’ll see the link to a gallery of the photos that I took on our visit, with descriptive captions. New Almaden’s roots as an old mining town are evident everywhere you turn, but there are the unexpected treasures too. The only place to eat there happens to also be one of the most respected French restaurants in all of California. There’s the old graveyard, with a road plowed through the middle, and with part of a person buried there. There’s a memorial to a fallen soldier from our recent wars, who is probably a household name to many of you. And more.

So there you have it. Of course, New Almaden is just one unique location out of endless possibilities. Local exploration can – and does – produce unexpected rewards, whether they be historic, scenic, quirky, or just good food and people. I’d encourage you to get out there and give it a try sometime.

New Almaden Photo Tour Gallery

On a related note from the past, I have two older galleries which are collections of photos from random day trips around my area: Day Trips Gallery 1 and Gallery 2. These have been up for a few years now but they contain a wider variety of interesting things I’ve seen in my area..

Downtime. That interminable space between road trips.

Unless you’re overlanding full time, you’re going to have downtime between your trips. And if your budget is as battered as mine has been in 2013, it makes it worse with fewer trips and correspondingly longer breaks between.

The way I deal with the downtime is to do things that are somehow related to what I really want to be doing. So if I can’t be making a road trip, I can be planning one. Or reading about one. Or whatever. Something that will – hopefully – scratch that itch, and get me through to the next adventure.

As the title of this post proclaims, I’ve put together a Top 10 list of things that you can do to fill that space. If you can’t get away, these alternatives will hopefully keep you going until you can, and scratch that itch. I’ve kept these short so that you can think them over and expand on them as you will. In that regard,  I hope that they are thought-provoking.

So without further ado…

10. Plan for the next trip – or trips – of course!

Break out the maps and guidebooks! There’s plenty there to help inspire you. The books are the easiest, often highlighting interesting sights along the way. But even plain maps can lead you on an adventure. I’ve sought out mines, springs, and other locations of interest on USGS maps.

Learning the history of an area before you go can really enrich the experience. Planning a route ahead of time can be important. Have conditions changed recently? All these things and much more can be researched ahead of your next trip.

9. Reading

Similar to trip planning, reading can inspire you to visit someplace new, or perhaps to see a destination in a new way. Reading about other adventures and trips is perhaps the next best thing to being there yourself. Whether it comes from a book, an online discussion forum, a paper or electronic magazine, whatever, this is one of the best ways to fire up your desire to get out there. Wherever “there” may be.

8. Not working on the future? Document the past.

Maybe you’ve got a blog like this one. Those trip reports and trail guides aren’t going to write themselves now are they? Or maybe you just keep a personal journal. No matte. If you’re like me and feel an inexplicable urge to write it down, then you’ve got some work to do.

Then there are also all those photos to sift through, edit and share. GPS tracks and waypoints need to be uploaded for future reference, and perhaps also shared. All of your material can now serve as the inspiration for someone’s epic trip, as others had perhaps inspired you.

7. Relax with a little TV

TV, DVDs, streaming videos, whatever. Sometimes it’s nice to take a seat and have a little time to relax. Shows like Michal Palin’s travels, or online series like Expedition Overland are another source of travel and adventure inspiration. I recently added the Long Way Round and Long Way Down series to my Netflix streaming list.

6. Build your Skills

I often hear it lamented around the campfire that offroaders would much rather spend their money on shiny new aftermarket parts than they would on taking a good class and building their skills. And more often than not, I think they’re right. It doesn’t just apply to offroaders either, but many hobbies and interests.

You benefit from any number of skills when you’re out on the road, or on the trails: First Aid, CPR, navigation (map, compass, and GPS skills), wilderness and camping skills, vehicle driving and recovery techniques, and so on. Been meaning to get your ham radio license? Or learn how to dead reckon, or triangulate your position on a map?

When possible, learn and practice these skills before you suddenly need to use them on your trip.

5. Bargain Hunting

One thing about sales and deals on used gear is that they are hard to count on. It’s much more difficult to find something marked down if you need it right now. If you have the luxury of time, more and more deals will pop up, and you’ll have more chances to take advantage.

For example, when I purchased the Warn winch for my Jeep, it wasn’t really high on my list of things to buy at the time, although I did plan to eventually get one. By getting it when I did, I was able to take advantage of a free accessory package offer that saved me around $150 in the long run. By having the flexibility of not having to buy it in a rush, I was able to benefit from that special offer.

Manufacturer and retailer websites, social media like Twitter and Facebook, Craigslist, the ExPo sale forums, and even print catalogs and mailing lists are good sources to watch for deals. Happy hunting!

4. Get Organized

This can be tedious, but again it has real benefits and will help keep you busy between those trips. Checklists. Shopping lists. Lists of things to check into. GPS file uploads. Appropriate maps and other resources. Get everything in order and you’ll be more organized and have your act together when the unexpected hits out on the trail.

(Personally, I take this one in moderation!)

3. Maintenance

There’s your vehicle, of course. Give it the once-over before your trip, and I don’t mean the night before when it will be too late to get it into the shop. Check for loose bolts or other issues. It’s worked for me and saved me from potentially serious breakdowns on the trail – or the highway.

Besides your vehicle, also get your gear in order. Make sure it’s all there and all working right. Is it clean and good to go? Is there enough fuel and food and water? Do you have a backup plan if your sleeping bag zipper fails (mine has) or stove doesn’t work (mine has) or whatever?

Check everything and verify condition. Fix or replace anything you need to.

2. Local Exploration

No big trips coming up soon, but you’re feeling the need to get out? Reading or planning not gonna cut it? Then perhaps a mini-fix of sorts is just what you need to get you by. I do these quite often!

A day trip can be just what the doctor ordered. I imagine that nearly everyone has appropriate destinations if they put their mind to it. Surely there’s someplace you can get out an explore. I know of plenty of day destinations here in the Bay Area and nearby.

Day trips – or overnighters – also work well as shakedown runs for new gear or vehicle checks. They’re also ideal places to test your GPS skills, photography, and other skills. You can even test your cooking and camping skills and equipment before heading out on those longer trips. And a short adventure is better than none.

1. Everything Else

When we get down to it, there’s more to life than road trips and offroading and such. I think. And while it’s fun to be making those trips, or enjoying Top 10 ways to keep yourself going between them, sometimes we do need to step away for a bit.

First off, there are our other worldly obligations. We have to work, and keep the bills paid, among other responsibilities. Do those chores around the house you’ve been meaning to get done. Get all that stuff squared away and it won’t be a barrier later to getting away for your fun.

Widen your horizons with some different books or shows. If you’re like me, you also have – gasp – other hobbies and interests. Give those some attention.

Perhaps most importantly, spend time with friends and family. Now would be the time to do some of those weird things that they consider fun.

So there we have it. Hopefully there’s enough to help keep you busy, productive and motivated between adventures.

It seems that Google has finally let a major part of its FeedBurner acquisition die off. It had been working for the most part for several months, but the email notifications have finally gone bye-bye. That had an impact here as I’d been using FeedBurner for both RSS syndication and for email updates to those who had subscribed.

I noticed the change on Sunday evening and promptly moved to a new service powered by FeedPress. With this new service,  all RSS subscriptions should be automatically redirected. So if you were signed up for the new post RSS feed or the comments RSS feed, hopefully you won’t have been impacted at all. Both are showing up correctly in my reader.

Unfortunately, if you had subscribed to email notification of new posts, that functionality is now dead on FeedBurner, and there’s no automatic redirect to the new service. You’ll need to sign yourself up for the new email newsletter. It’s simple enough, just look for this box in the right-hand column of the blog:

(This is a screen capture of what the email subscription box looks like, it doesn’t actually function.)

The new email basically works like the old one, where you’ll only get an email when there is a new post here.

Let me know if you are experiencing any difficulties with these features.