Day three was the most epic so far. We walked 33 miles, spent 14 hours outdoors, offroaded, peed on a couple trees, and almost went crazy.
Waking up at 6am to clean up the apartment a little (thanks Carolle and Dave for letting us stay in your place!) we headed out with freshly cleaned clothes (apartments with laundry close by will be a luxury that we know we will appreciate). We started walking at 630 and made it toward the Dumbarton Bridge (the longest bridge EVER! maybe not really). On the way we were able to stop by the Facebook Headquarters, where we crossed the road illegally a couple times to sneak onto their landscaping to take some pretty amazing pictures.
The bridge was interesting, the actual over-water part is about 1.5 miles, but with the approach and descent it’s over 5 miles and feels like 300. There was an abandoned railway bridge to the south of the Dumbarton that was a pretty gorgeous view and we could see some fishermen down on a dock. We even crossed into a new town (Fremont!) even though the end of the bridge is technically in Newark.
After crossing the bridge we saw a port-a-potty (yay) but unfortunately it was locked. After walking for about 3.5 hours we really had to pee. Luckily the stop to investigate around the port-a-potty forced us to appreciate the post-apocalyptic feel of the after-bridge section. It was gorgeously bleak. (Don’t worry, there was a perfect tree just beyond the locked port-a-potty, our first illegal pee break!)
However, crossing the bridge was only the beginning of the adventure of the day. We met up with Drew (one of Tim’s friends from his hometown of Griffith who moved to San Jose) where we caught up in a Starbucks as we used their wi-fi and relaxed for a minute before we walked about 2 miles with him and took our Newark city sign pic with him (we used the timer on our camera for the first time!) We had time for a long lunch so we stopped to eat with him too and headed on our way.
We got onto highway 84 where it was hot, but we stopped at a gas station to buy Gatorade and started out on the road. The views as we walked were gorgeous, and for the first time (but definitely not the last) we were out of the built environment and able to start enjoying nature!

The trees on the hillside were so fun looking, we almost wanted to run up there to lay in the shade, but they were much farther than they looked
The shoulder along highway 84 got really tight so we had to improvise. There was a dry riverbed with a nice path leading down to it that we could see on Google Maps (thanks Google and modern technology!) Unfortunately, there was some poison oak on that path (luckily, Rebecca is immune, Tim.. not so much).
We finally made it Sunol (a really cute railroad based town that’s hard to correctly pronounce) after climbing random hills and through plants and over rocks and around a river! We were already 25 miles in, but we still had 8 miles to go despite both being tired, hot, and ready to be done for the day. If we had our full packs we probably would stop right there to camp, but we had a bed and a shower waiting for us in Livermore so we were going to make it (we also haven’t been carrying our tent/sleeping bags so we didn’t really have a choice)!
We stopped in town to buy some beef jerky (Tim) and ice cream (Rebecca) while we decided if we could make it, which of course, we could! We also visited the statue of Bosco, the dog mayor (he was mayor of Sunol from 1981 to 1994). This is a fact.
Today we walked through:
Palo Alto
Menlo Park
East Palo Alto
Newark
Fremont
Union City
Sunol
Livermore
Rebecca: 71,970 steps
Tim: 67,044 steps
84 miles finished!!
I grew up in Pleasanton and all of your Bay Area photos are making me a bit homesick. They feel like the touchdown of my very well known MDW-OAK trip where the weather and the topography of the landscape are calling. I’m very much enjoying the first three days of your trip. Yay highway 84 (so close – I’ve run out to 84 from my home many times)! Thanks for sharing your journey!!
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Janine, awesome! The weather is nice (though not always so nice for walking outdoors all the time, we already have minor sun burns and have gotten hot. I’m not liking forward to Nevada at all). Thanks for following along!
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We ran into a couple walking along Hwy 50 headed up to see the lake or well what’s left if it.
My husband asked where are you two going?
Much to my surprise the couple stated New York!!
WoW … Good luck and happy travels to you BOTH
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