Palo Alto - 8/6/2016

This morning we took it easy but after lunch we did some driving around and ended up at El Palo Alto Park.  This park and the city of Palo Alto are named after a coastal redwood tree that is located in the park.  In Spanish Palo Alto means tall stick and is the name given to the tree by Spanish explorers led by Gaspar de Portola on the expedition that discovered San Francisco Bay in 1769.  This redwood is designated as California Historical Landmark No. 2 and was used by the Spanish as a sighting tree when they were laying out El Camino Real (The Royal Road).

El Palo Alto is currently 110 ft. tall.  It was 162 ft tall in 1814 but pollution from coal burning trains and the lowering of the water table resulted it the dying of the top.  Since 1960 conservation efforts have restored the health of the tree.  The measured age of the tree is 1,076 years old.  Here is a picture I downloaded from Wikipedia showing the tree and the railroad trestle right next to it.

That trestle is used every day by Caltrains for the commuter trains that run from San Jose to San Francisco.  Here is a video I shot of one of these commuter trains.

That was it for today as it was getting dark.