Edenvale Garden Park, San Jose

Today started off with a catch-22 that I considered leaving out of the blog because, well, it's medical and personal, but it was so weird that it's too good a story to pass up.

I've been aiming to be home in time for a doctor's appointment March 17. I'm supposed to have some lab results to the doctor before the visit. That's all you get to know about that. :-) It will be hard to get home in time to have the labs done locally, so I had Blue Cross direct me to a lab in the San Jose area. (That was another drawn-out process that isn't worth retelling - I'm sure you've been through similar experiences.)

So today I went to the lab, filled out their paperwork, and waited for them to call my name. A nice technician drew a couple of vials of blood and said they'd send the results to the doctor. I left.

As I was sitting in the car trying to figure out a more scenic way back here than the freeway my phone rang. It was the lab - could I come back in for more paperwork? When I got to the desk the woman in charge explained that company rules prohibit their doing work for patients whose residence is in a different state than the doctor. I explained that DC is so small that going to Arlington isn't like going out of state. She got on the phone with her supervisor and came back, all apologetic: it was a company rule that neither she nor her supervisor has any influence over, it made no sense, but that's what it is. She returned the paper I'd brought with the doctor's order and said they would discard my blood.

So now I have to reschedule the March 17 appointment, because no way am I going to spend any more of my time here tracking down other labs or cut short my visit to rush back home for a routine medical procedure.

OK, so to cool off and get to where I could see the humor in the situation, I told the GPS to find me a park nearby where I could walk. It took me to Edenvale Garden Park, the remnant of a former Wild West-themed amusement park called Frontier Village that operated from 1961 to 1980 before being swallowed up by urban sprawl.

I walked, sticking to the paved paths because the grounds are otherwise mostly tall weeds. I saw one surviving small structure from the amusement park but the only really photogenic item I found was a stand of towering eucalyptus trees near the south end of the park. Here's one of the giants, in two pieces. Click on the lower photo and notice the wonderfully shaggy bark dangling in strips from the trunk and piled on the ground.

The San Jose Parks Department gives minimal information about the park but I found an amusing website, Defunct Parks, that descrubes it lovingly and includes photos of Frontier Village structures that are now long gone.