Shoreline Park

Description

Shoreline Park is sort of unusual as parks go.  It's not a "mowed lawn with a few trees" park, nor is it a "wilderness of ancient redwoods" park.  Basically, it's a small artificial lake (called Shoreline Lake, reasonably enough) with grassy areas around it, and slightly-wilder-and-not-so-grassy areas around that.  Major activities include kite-flying, boating, walking, bicycling, golfing, and hanging out in the Shoreline Lake Cafe and watching other people do those other things.  There's also a restaurant called Michael's at Shoreline adjacent to the golf course (this is different from the Shoreline Lake Cafe).

Swimming in the lake and skateboarding are not permitted.  A more complete list of "thou shalt nots" can be found here.

The entrance to Shoreline Park is a little forbidding.  There's a gate house that looks a bit like the security gates to get into ARC.  However, if there are guards, they don't show up for work very often.  Just stop at the stop signs and drive on.  (Keeping an eye out for squirrels.  The squirrels out there are unionized, and if you hit one of them, they'll all come after you.  It's not pretty.)

The kite-flying area is just inside the gate.  It's a large, flat, open area that is there specifically for kite flying.  There's even a sign that says so (see above).  You'll see people with everything from free-in-their-cereal kites to big honking wing shapes dragging people around on what look like oversized skateboards.  There's no place to rent kites, but the Shoreline Lake Cafe sells one or two very basic models.

To go boating, you either need to bring your own boat (there's a public landing ramp into the water near the cafe) or rent one.  The rental shop (aka "The Aquatic Center") is located on the water next to the cafe.  You can rent pedal boats, row boats, canoes, kayaks, windsurfers, and sail boats.  The full rental schedule is here.  You are required to wear life jackets, and they're included in the rental price.  There have been sailiing classes held here in the past, but no further information is available on that at the moment.  (If you're looking to learn to sail, you might try here.)

Walking and biking trails are all over the place.  Many of them converge around the cafe, so that's as good a place to start as any.  If you're biking, you are required to wear a helmet.  Bicycles can be rented at the Aquatic Center (see the boat section above), and come with helmets.  Thus far there are no equipment requirements for walking.  Although shoes are usually a good idea.

The golf course is called the Shoreline Golf Links.  So far, no one who golfs has contributed to this page.  To the untrained eye, the golf course here looks like every other golf course.  If you golf and have been here, edit this page to tell us about it.

More information on Michael's at Shoreline will be added when it becomes available.  It serves breakfast and lunch, but apparently does not serve dinner.

The Shoreline Lake Cafe serves hot breakfasts, hot and cold sandwiches, and a variety of hot and cold drinks, including wine and beer.  Picnic baskets are also available.  Their menu can be found here.

Incidentally, not only is Shoreline Lake artificial, but the entire park is artificial.  Mouintain View made a deal with the City of San Francisco to use almost a square mile of the area as a landfill from 1968 until 1981.  In the 1980s, the landfill was covered over and turned into a park, a project funded by the accumulated dumping fees paid by San Francisco.

Main Web Site

http://www.shorelinelake.com/

Location

3070 North Shoreline Boulevard, Mountain View, CA

To get there, take North Shoreline Boulevard north out of Mountain View.  When you run out of road, stop.  You're in the park.  (If you don't stop driving after you run out of road, you'll drive through some salt marshes and end up in San Francisco Bay.  That's almost certainly going to be bad for your car.)

Drive Time

from Ames to the Shoreline Lake Cafe (per Google maps):  12 minutes

Public Transit

Hours

Shoreline Park:  6 AM to 30 minutes after sunset, 24/7

Shoreline Lake Cafe:  opens at 8:30 AM, closes at 5 PM weekedays, 7 PM Saturday and Sunday

Shoreline Golf Links:  ???

Michael's at Shoreline:  ???

Cost

Use of the park is FREE.  Boats and food aren't.