"rw" wrote

When I worked at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA my
building was right at the edge of the wetlands bordering San Francisco
Bay.

I used to duck hunt the south SF bay, out of Alviso, and every time I went,
and I went dozens of times, it was a real shock. One was surrounded by
civilization and high tech, but in the middle of wildness ( at least in the
preferred nasty late Fall weather of duck hunting ). I can't really
express it well enough, think "scary wild" and you'll get the idea, every
bit as removed and isolated feeling as two days walk into the Sierra. The
lights of the city buildings were like the lights of a passing jet on a
backpack, a reminder of a different life, but one that seems very far away.

I suppose it's all gone now, but I used to train where San Antonio rd meets
the bay, east of Palo Alto, and it was a very large wetlands, full of some
of Nature's best work, in sight of the homes and work places of one of
Nature's least pleasant experiments