I just posted this.
My Jeep in a mustard field. Mountain View CA, January 2016. Posted here ➜ Monthly Photo Competition #25 – December, 2024 – “Texture” - #13 by Bullitt ■
They paved paradise and put in a parking lot.
And also a corporate park.
This was in the city of Mountain View CA, and in January 2016 when I spotted this field I was surprised there was this large-ish open space still available here in the heart of Silicon Valley. There are very few open spaces left*.
When I spotted this mustard field I just had to drive out onto it. It was calling to me! The ground was a little moist with some light mud, and fortunately I didn’t get stuck in that field. I was able to drive out of it.
In the field you can just barely make out a subtle pathway through the mustard plants between the driver’s door and where I’m standing to take this picture. I had just walked through there.
In the Jeep here you can see my wife sitting inside, leaning forward into the sun and waving to me. In the other pictures she is seated back in her seat, in the shadow and practically out of sight.
Within two years of when these were taken, that field was developed and built on. The DD coordinates of this spot is ▲ 37.3918, -122.053. If you punch those numbers into a map (remember the comma and minus sign) you’ll see exactly where this is. In a satellite view, the building and parking lot about 500 feet to the northeast was there. I entered the mustard field from that parking lot. In the picture I’m taking the photos while facing to the northwest. The camera is pointed northwest.
* — For local open space management do have POST, the Peninsula Open Space Trust. The remaining open spaces here on the San Francisco Peninsula are managed and maintained well. For example if you drive on US-101 from San Jose up to San Francisco, all you see is city after city after city. But if you instead take the parallel and nearby I-280, you’re almost exclusively out in open country and green, rolling hills. It’s a beautiful drive. Open Spaces here are valued and kept, and appreciated.