Sunday Drives with Mike: The Place I Missed for 21 Years

<p>Four trips into the Oakland redwoods, a night beneath Chabot’s telescope domes and one question I could not stop asking: How had I missed this for my daughters’ entire childhood?</p> <p>By Mike MacPherson SF Bay Weekend</p> <p>I have twin 21-year-old daughters.</p> <p>Over those 21 years, I have tried to give them experiences. We have traveled to Europe, Cape Cod and the Oregon and California coasts. We have gone to amusement parks, movies, ballets and The Nutcracker.</p> <p>But until I walked into Chabot Space & Science Center, I had never taken them to a space and science museum.</p> <p>Not once.</p> <p>Standing there on a Saturday afternoon, surrounded by families, rockets and children moving excitedly from one discovery to the next, I kept asking myself: How did I miss this for all 21 years of their lives? I did not arrive at that question in a single afternoon. I found my way to it over several weeks in the Oakland hills.</p> <p>The Road into the Hills</p> <p>Because SF Bay Weekend lists hundreds of events, I spend a lot of time looking beyond an event name to the place where it happens.</p> <p>That is how Woodminster Amphitheater caught my attention. I had read about performances there, but I wanted to understand the setting. So I began exploring Joaquin Miller Park and the Oakland hills around it.</p> <p>One trip became another. Over several weeks, I went into the redwoods four times.</p> <p>I hiked around Roberts Regional Recreation Area and near Sequoia Arena. I spent a couple of hours on Dunn Trail, where the landscape opened up and the views reached across the valley. I watched riders take the rollers and jumps at the Oakland Pump Track.</p> <p>The destinations sat close together, but each felt different: shaded redwood groves, open ridges, horses, bikes and views that made me stop walking and look.</p> <p>This was not the Oakland I thought I knew.</p> <p>A Sunday Drive on a Saturday</p> <p>Football season now sends most of my Sundays to Ed’s. But Sunday Drives with Mike does not need a new name every time the road calls on a different day. This drive happened across several Saturdays and a Friday, and that is fine.</p> <p>The day may change. The idea does not.</p> <p>Go somewhere. Pay attention. Leave enough room in the plan to discover something you were not looking for.</p> <p>Saturday Night Beneath the Domes</p> <p>One Saturday evening, I followed the road through the redwoods to Chabot for the free public telescope viewing.</p> <p>I arrived at 7:30, when the viewing began, and stayed until about 9. Chabot’s three historic telescopes have names: Leah, Rachel and Nellie.</p> <p>Nellie and Leah were open that night, and I moved between them looking into a sky that suddenly felt much closer.</p> <p>Beneath their domes, Chabot did not feel like a museum waiting for a school field trip. It felt alive—a working observatory hidden among the Oakland redwoods.</p> <p>I knew I had to come back during the day.</p> <p>The Friday I Did Not Go Home</p> <p>The following week, I attended a convention in downtown Oakland. Friday was the final day. When it ended, I could have gone home. Instead, I drove into the hills again.</p> <p>I walked around Joaquin Miller Park near the community center and dog park, then made my way up to Woodminster. The amphitheater was closed that afternoon, but even empty it felt like a discovery—an outdoor stage tucked into a park that the surrounding community must consider its own.</p> <p>I stopped at Skyline Community Market and picked up fresh produce for the trail. I returned to Dunn Trail, Sequoia Arena and the redwoods around Roberts. Before leaving the hills, I drove up to Chabot and took pictures outside, but I did not go in.</p> <p>Later, on my drive home, cars lined the road near Joaquin Miller Park. People walked toward the trees carrying chairs. The quiet place I had explored that afternoon had come alive. That was the pattern I kept finding in the Oakland hills. Every stop led to another reason to return.</p> <p>The Place I Had Missed</p> <p>The next afternoon, I made my third visit to Chabot and finally entered the Space & Science Center. The NASA experience was impressive. There were rockets, equipment connected to humanity’s exploration of the moon, hands-on exhibits and a planetarium. Families were everywhere.</p> <p>That was when the thought about my daughters hit me. I had spent their childhood looking for things we could experience together. And this had been sitting in the Oakland hills the whole time.</p> <p>Oakland surprised me.</p> <p>Chabot humbled me.</p> <p>Sometimes discovery is not simply finding a place you did not know existed. Sometimes it is recognizing an experience you wish you had found sooner.</p> <p>My daughters are 21 now. I cannot take them back to Chabot as children. But I can still take them.</p> <p>It’s out there. Let’s go find it.</p> <p>Find the Magic.</p>