What to do in the Bay area?

OK Hive,

I'll be in San Jose for work tomorrow and Thursday. I will most likely have a very short day Thursday, leaving some time for exploration and such. What should I see in a day? I will have a rental car, likely something terribly boring. The wife is then flying out for the weekend and we're headed to SF, but I think she's got that pretty thoroughly planned.

You don’t even need to leave the terminal to see this awesome kinetic art piece…

rolling ball thingy

Head south on the 101, not far to Monterey.

Just north on the 880 in Fremont, just off the freeway is the Tesla factory.

Winchester Mystery house is weird / interesting / touristy, if you are into that.

When you drive up to San Fran: TAKE THE 280, not the 101, you will thank me.

If you want to drive, you can head down the 17 to Santa Cruz, then head up the 1 to Half Moon Bay (this is where Mavericks is) then Pacifica. This is not a bad way to take the long way to SF also.

(I believe the waves are only up for Winter storms)

While you are there, find an open house for a small place, and take a look at what you get for you money on the peninsula sounth of SF.

Be warned that the traffic will suck.

Monterey is nice, especially the aquarium, but see above about traffic. The San Jose Tech museum is kind of cool. Lots of stuff in San Francisco. If you like amusement parts, there's Great America in Santa Clara. There are a bunch of indoor karting places around.

I'm spending Thursday afternoon towing the Miata up to Thunderhill. :)

if you are looking for really beautiful drive in the mountains, Take highway 17 west out of San Jose. Get on highway 9 in Los Gatos. Drive highway 9 over the mountains to Santa Cruz.

Alternatively, you can take highway 9 and turn north when you reach Skyline Blvd. Its a two lane road that runs roughly long the ridgeline of the coastal mountains. You alternately have views of either the Bay on east side of the road or the Pacific on the right.

Don't forget to use their Rail system called the BART.

Thanks for all the tips. Think I'm going to check out Tesla, and maybe the tech museum if I have time.

I wish I were going to Thunderhill! I really wanted to go to Laguna Seca, but there aren't any cool car things going on this weekend that I can find.

Also- I ended up with a Chevy cruze ltz as a rental. Seems like it would be surprisingly fun to flog. If only I had found an autocross this weekend instead of agreeing to wine tasting. Alas.

Probably not as fun as the mustang gt my colleague ended up with as a rental, but what are you gonna do.

Type Q wrote: if you are looking for really beautiful drive in the mountains, Take highway 17 west out of San Jose. Get on highway 9 in Los Gatos. Drive highway 9 over the mountains to Santa Cruz.

I made this beautiful drive just last weekend, before catching final week of snow skiing at Heavenly in Tahoe.

So much unbelievably open space on the left coast. Really good trip.

OHSCrifle wrote:

Type Q wrote: if you are looking for really beautiful drive in the mountains, Take highway 17 west out of San Jose. Get on highway 9 in Los Gatos. Drive highway 9 over the mountains to Santa Cruz.

I made this beautiful drive just last weekend, before catching final week of snow skiing at Heavenly in Tahoe. So much unbelievably open space on the left coast. Really good trip.

The San Andreas fault runs through the middle of the mountains that separate the Pacific from the Bay. My understanding is back in the 70's when a lot of urban sprawl was happening around the bay, several county governments decided that it would be a good idea to prevent lots of homes being built on steep hillsides directly on a large active fault line. A whole series of state parks, country parks and open space preserves were created that run from San Francisco down to Santa Cruz. If you like hiking or mountain biking there are literally hundreds of mile of trails to explore.

cmcgregor wrote: I wish I were going to Thunderhill! I really wanted to go to Laguna Seca, but there aren't any cool car things going on this weekend that I can find.

I'm running on the west course with a small group, but Trackmasters is running on the east course (the old 3 mile circuit) at the same time and I think there's still room. Bring the rental! :)

If you have any interest in bicycles/mountain biking, the Sea Otter Classic is this weekend in Monterey, including events at Laguna Seca.