San Pablo Reservoir

We went to Berkeley today with the objective of taking my broken camera to Looking Glass Photo, the closest place that carries Leicas. We decided to take Ozzie with us and take a hike on the Seaview Trail in Tilden Park, where Ozzie and I used to walk together several times a week. I still miss the views from the ridge between two counties, and the two biggest mountains in the Bay Area, Mt Tamalpias and Mt Diablo. Ozzie still misses being free of his leash.

The San Pablo Reservoir looked quite different than it did when I photographed it over a year ago from the same place, but I thought the contrasts between spring and autumn, a good camera and an iPhone, and the effects of an ongoing drought were interesting. We both wondered what Ozzie remembered of our rambles in all weathers there….

No trip to Berkeley is complete without a stop at our beloved Peet's, where we used to convene every single morning with a rotating group of people for coffee and conversation. The old bakery is no more, but has been replaced by one with the lightest, flakiest croissants I have ever eaten. It's probably a good thing that they were still doing renovations when we moved.

At Looking Glass, Mark told me that sometimes he could "jiggle" a stuck lens and fix a camera, but this didn't appear to be one of those times. He also said that there is a new Leica store that just opened in San Francisco. The bad news is that I'll have to send my camera to New Jersey for repairs. The good news is that I bought it at Looking Glass, and Mark thought that he could find the sales receipt, since it should still be under warranty. The other good news is that I got a new camera. Not a Leica, but a Canon with a good telephoto which will make a good back-up.