Hi there, I`ll be visiting family near San Jose/California at the end of april. Maybe you guys have a neat recommendation what`s there to check out in the area? Car related or not, doesn`t matter too much as I`ll be travelling with my wife and kids and I sure won`t be able to hang around car places all the time. Any great swap meets, parks, museums, movie locations, historical sights to check out, whatsoever.... So, if you have some ideas I`d be more than glad to hear about them. Jens
Can you tell me where in San Jose you are staying? That will help me give you ideas. Otherwise, Santana Row is up the street from Winchester Mystery House. Thats a big shopping, eating, grazing area with stuff to do. Downtown has the childerns museum, There is Happy Hollow park in the east side with a japanese garden thats gorgeous. The Park has a zoo( i think it petting) and there are rides and things for kids to do and see. If you are up for a 30 minute drive, you can go over the hill on Hwy 17 into Santa Cruz which has a great boardwalk with tons of rides, games, and the Coconut Grove(think Six Flags on the beach). You also have San Francisco 40 minutes north of San Jose, but you need to get there early to avoid the traffic. You have Los Gatos to the west(on way to Santa Cruz) that has Vasona park with a lake, trails, there a mini train and theres a huge playing ground there as well. If you go into Santa Clara off Hwy 101, you can visit Facebook, Yahoo, GooglePlex, Apple(you may want to call ahead for info on tours). Bottom line...IT'S SILICON VALLEY, PLENTY OF THINGS TO DO!
Hey, yeah, there you go, thanks for your ideas. My sister-in-law resides in Morgan Hill, a little south of San Jose. We just rented a little apartement with the kids in downtown SJ. The Winchester hosue is already on my to-do list, and the ideas with this park you`ve mentioned and Santa Cruz sound good for sure. I`ll be going there anyways as I surf and would like to get me some time in the water. Are there any old car cemeteries around (do they still exist?), some good vendors I might peep in? Maybe I could even score some parts for my 71`GS, would there be places to go to? Oh, nearest quarter mile/8-mile to San Jose? Seems to be a litttle dried out as far as I`ve searched on Google, couldn`t find anything close by. Jens
Hey there! Out in San Jose here! Unfortunately no quarter mile strips around. -Good Guys Car show is this weekend unfortunately thats the biggest swap-meet in my books - Great America Theme Park -The Tech Museum Downtown as well. -San Jose Museum of Modern Art -San Jose Historical Museum which is right next to Kelly Park that has a mini Zoo and a Japanese Garden as well. -Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum -Castle Rock park / hiking near Los Gatos Up North -Up north in SF they have the California Academy of Sciences which is awesome and I am positive your children will love. -If you enjoy amazing artwork, the Legion of Honor in Golden Gate Park is great and cheap fun as well. -Muir Woods / Hiking = amazing Down South -Santa Cruz Board Walk! -Monterey CA is not too far especially if you are heading towards Morgan Hill one day, they have the Aquarium and Whale Watching Tours. -Carmel is beautiful as well and might have a car-show going on.
Ah Morgan Hill. First thing to remember is that Hwy 101 is an absolute "b*tch" to travel at rush hours in morning and afternoon. So whatever you do, stay away from that hwy between Morgan Hill and San Jose. If for instance you are in San Jose and planning to be in Morgan Hill for dinner, you need to leaving San Jose by 3pm, or you'll get into some real nasty traffic. Due to the gentrification of the Bay Area, many residents fled to Morgan Hill, Gilroy, and Hollister for affordable housing and then commute into San Jose for work. They built up the little towns for residents but they failed to upgrade the highway system to move them back and forth. That being said... An apartment in downtown San Jose is nice. That gets to you all the sites I mentioned within 30 minutes(with consideration to traffic). Downtown SJ to Santa Cruz will be about 45 minute drive. Its a very windy hwy to Santa Cruz once you get into mountains...so dramamine for anyone who gets motion sickness. Many of the car cemeteries are gone and have been replaced with housing, shopping centers, or business centers. Most of the graveyards are now located in the San Joaquin Valley over the eastern hills. Progress hurts I'm sorry to say. The nearest 1/4 mile was a place called Sear Point which is up in Sonoma, about 1.5 hours from San Jose. San Jose speedway at the fairground is no more. I think your best bet of the trip will be to go over the hill to Santa Cruz. Thats a ton of stuff to do for the family, and you won't have enough time to see it all. There is also a train that goes through the forest that is unbeleivalbly gorgoues and relaxing. Its on the way to Santa Cruz. Look up https://www.roaringcamp.com/beachtrain. This will even take you to the beach, fun for all.
Hey guys, that`s premium info I`m getting from you, thank you so much. Electrta-fied, as I understand I`ll be going to Morgan Hill anticyclic, I`ll be heading there when everbody wants to go working in SJ, and I`ll return to SJ when they wanna go back to Morgan Hill....hopefully I`ll see that traffic jam just from the free lane going in the opposite direction. San Joaqin valley car graveyards, any special place you remember? Speaking of windy roads I remember going for a daytrip on the isle of Corse in the Mediterranen 2 years back...man, I got sick as hell, these roads must have originally been build for donky caravans, not cars. Very very beautiful, but very also hard on your balancing system.... Jose, nice and detailed info there too. Say, are there any know vintage car meetings on a regular base, e.g. every friday night at a drive-in or so...we have this kind of meeting around here once a month, at a Burger King place, depending on the weather you have from 20 to 100 cars coming together....anyting comparable around SJ? Jens
Unfortunately theres not much in the way of vintage car salvage yards. Most are 1990s-recent model vehicle yards. Anything you find used will already be at a specialty shop and you'll pay top dollar for them. Fresno/Madera used to have a pick and pull that was great for older models, but they gone the way of current models as well. I believe there is an April 27th Car show at Villages Golf and Country Club. Some of my family take there cars there. Half Moon Bay(city on the coast 1 hour north of Santa Cruz) also has a big car show sometime around the end of April as well. They put it on at the Half Moon Bay Airport. If you do that one, You'll go up towards San Francisco either on 101 or 280 and take the Hwy 92 Half Moon Bay exit. Thats faster than going through San Cruz. If you look at road map, you'll see what I mean.
Hey, wow, thanks a lot...right up there on the agenda, this `ll be fun. Yeah, time marches on as they say, that even goes for the old junkyards in the middle of nowhere...they might even not be there anymore but right next to the new housing area, convention center ect...When I was 22 I made a roudtrip through the southern states of the US in a 1978 Caprice 2dr coupe and when we were in Memphis we went to the drags on wednesday evening, race what you bring kind-a-like. I later learned that this racetrack is now a housing area.... A few years back we had a car graveyard here that had been collecting cars from the thirties up to the mid seventies, beautifully located in a wood. But community-vs-owner disput had it removed in 2010 I guess, it was most impressing for sure. For those of you who`re interested, here`s a link https://www.dreamcar.ch/?page_id=241654 Jens
Hey, back from San Jose California had a great time, thanks for all your input before, I, ll report on that...here a little notice I also left in the lead section: Hey fellow Buickers, unfortunatly my last shipment didn' t make it in time before I left my AirBnB place in San Jose , Ca, yesterday. Back in Zürich , Switzerland, now I have no use for it no more there. Free to pick up at my vacation place is a Grateful Dead 8 track I bought, double album, I'd love to hear somebody pick it up and not let it sit in that mailbox forever...no one there would know what it is or what to do with it So if you wanna grab it for free, it's 428 N 2nd Street App. D, mailbox is with the others up on the porch. Enjoy Jens
