The "Real" Streets of Silicon Valley

On a recent recon mission, I swung by a few of the usual self driving car spots. First to the former mall that houses Google's, Alphabet's, Google X's, Waymo's self driving car research. With project Firefly long gone, there were a few self driving Chrysler minivans to be seen. But basically, it was really slow. In my stakeout I spent about an hour waiting and saw 4-5 vehicles.

Chrysler Self Driving Minivan

So I booked it over to Sunnyvale. There are a couple of research centers there as well. In fact Nissan-Renault and Baidu are right across the street from one-another. But nothing interesting to be seen there at all. The row of self driving cars in Baidu's parking lot was no longer to be seen.

So I headed over to Yahoo's HQ about two blocks away to potentially do some Silicon Valley stock photo coverage for my main stock photo biz. It's there I found a most interesting contrast. Between the billion dollar company headquarters, a street was lined with beat-up old RVs.

Beat-up RV's on the Streets of Silicon Valley

I pulled over only to notice a itsy-bitsy - almost kid sized car. It was rusty, and somehow cute. I got out and took a few photos- the contrast was so ironic. Here I am searching for cutting edge vehicles from the wealthy and great only to be surrounded by dilapidation and poverty.

Rusty Crosley with 1960's Oklahoma plates