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Just imagine a child’s look of amazement as they stare in wonder at incredible structures, some up to six feet tall: playful panda bears, Chinese dragons, giant poppies and intricate Chinese lanterns, each illuminated with tens of thousands of bright lights.That’s what visitors will see at a Chinese art installation that will put Gilroy Gardens on the international map for the next four months, attracting tourists from near and far to experience a historic art show that has only appeared in a handful of venues around the world.Called “Lumination: Chinese Culture Celebrated in a Whole New Light,” it’s an extraordinary light display representing more than 2,000 years of Chinese history and culture, shown with brightly lit sculptures of iconic structures such as the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven, and Terracotta Warriors, each artistically woven into the park’s 26 acres of natural beauty.“You have the lanterns, incredible displays of Chinese mythology, and architecture, spectacular enormous displays illuminated at night, and then you have Chinese acrobats performing every night,” says Glenn Dobbin, managing partner for Toronto-based DDM Entertainment & Events, Inc., who helped bring the program here.“And you have traditional Chinese craftsman, so you’ll see these arts and crafts that you’ve likely never seen.”Intricate, handmade objects composed of countless individual pieces, including traditional handcrafted silk lanterns, porcelain china plates and tiny glass bottles filled with colored water, are a commanding vision by day.But at night, they are simply breathtaking, as literally millions of LED bulbs illuminate over 30 displays of Chinese culture, including the mythical qilin, an icon of the Qin and Qing dynasties that resembles the Western unicorn.The Chinese theme extends throughout the lushly landscaped 536-acre park, featuring an authentic Chinese marketplace. There will be acrobats, performers, and, yes, Chinese food.Gilroy Gardens was originally a commercial plant nursery and a vacation spot for employees of Nob Hill Foods markets. It was founded by Nob Hill owners Michael and Claudia Bonfante, who built it after selling the chain. It opened to the public in 2001 with 19 rides and six gardens.In 2008 the city of Gilroy took it over. It now has a water park and playgrounds, but its main attraction is the luxurious verdant gardens, forests and walking trails, making it especially well suited for the night events. Its Christmas lights festival began in 2004.Fifty Chinese artisans have worked seven days a week for six weeks to assemble “Lumination.” They are staying in homes and empty offices at the park, with comforts of home including Internet connections, a laundromat and a giant kitchen.“They cook their own food, they take care of themselves,” says Thomas Kuo, a translator.“They all are enjoying their stay. Sometimes they work three hours a day, and sometimes they have to work eight hours a day, but they make sure that the workers get their rest.”The materials come in huge shipping containers.Among those who participated in the show’s assembly phase, Hou Ping Lu, 68, has worked in 10 different countries as an artist. His focus is on lanterns, which he has crafted for 50 years. His favorite piece, the Nine Heaven Pagoda, is a structure that appears to stretch into the sky.This display can’t be missed, since it’s the first one seen on entering the park.Hou has been traveling for his art since 1995 and heads to Singapore next. It’s his way of life, he says.“My wife doesn’t travel with me,” he says. “Earning money is a man’s thing. I will send money back home and my wife will relax.”He’s visited San Francisco, seen the Golden Gate Bridge, Chinatown and Stanford University, but the other workers haven’t been there, says Hou.These artisans have added a level of culture to Gilroy that should bring in more visitors from San Francisco, says Barb Granter, general manager of Gilroy Gardens. While the park does draw people from 100 miles away, it has far more visitors from Los Gatos than the north parts of the Bay Area. She thinks “Lumination” will change that.“It’s about a special event that’s a Chinese festival, coming to view the sculptures, and be immersed in Chinese culture,” says Granter.“Lumination” began its journey to Gilroy Gardens more than two years ago when the park was looking for a way to extend its number of operating days and reach a new audience.“We had been actively looking for something that would allow us to do an evening event,” says Granter. “We would need a good 2,000-3,000 people to keep it open at night.”When Toronto-based Dobbin first visited Bonfante Gardens back in 2006, he realized he’d discovered the perfect venue for an authentic Chinese lantern festival.“I’m the governor of the Chinese Cultural Center in Toronto,” he says. “This is the biggest Chinese cultural center in the West, so Chinese culture became a part of my life.”In other venues, including Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo, City Park in New Orleans and Fair Park in Dallas, the exhibit has brought as many as 250,000 visitors.“This is the most beautiful natural setting we’ve ever worked in, the setting, the background, it’s almost like this park was built for a lantern festival. I think it’s gorgeous,” says Dobbin.Brad Kava contributed to this article. ‘Lumination’ runs July 16-Nov. 27, 6 p.m.-10 p.m. Tickets are $30, or $20 when buying four or more. Parking is $14. Save $5 by buying online. Daytime park admission is $34 online. For additional information go to luminationgilroy.org/index.

Gilroy insurance executive Annie Palmer was startled out of a deep sleep at 1:30 a.m. recently when she heard something outside her Hannah Street window that sounded like a thousand bumble bees.It was a hot night and she had the window open.“I was really frightened,” she said. “I had no idea what it was.” She went outside with a flashlight and saw that it was a drone. She tried following it, but lost it.The same day—but at 10:30 p.m.—it was outside her window again. This time she called the Gilroy Police Department, where an officer first told her there was nothing they could do about it, but then, realizing it was so late at night that it was disturbing the peace, told her they’d look into it.She never heard back, but the following afternoon, while she was gardening, the drone was back again.This time, she took action.“I felt violated,” Palmer, 58, said. “It was really creepy. I felt like I had to hide in my house. It was definitely a violation of my privacy.”So, she followed the drone and found its owner on a street with a laptop computer piloting the device. He told her the drone had no camera, so she shouldn’t feel bothered.But she was. So were plenty of her neighbors who felt they were violated by this drone pilot.They filed complaints with the police and with Mayor Perry Woodward, who brought it up at the last City Council meeting and asked city staff to research what laws they can pass to protect the rights of residents, while possibly allowing drones to still fly.“They are fun to fly,” said Woodward in an interview. He is also a commercial pilot and an attorney and has long considered the problem of what he calls a technology in its “Wild West” phase. “I’ve flown them. But I don’t want to see someone flying one outside my daughter’s window. There has to be a balance.”Santa Clara County’s Open Space Authority has banned piloting drones from its parks. Los Angeles has classified drones with model airplanes, limited their use to daylight hours and forbidden them from flying more than 400 feet high, which is beyond the pilot’s ability to see them, making them dangerous to people on the ground. It also requires drones to stay away from hospitals and schools.In a proposed ordinance, Phoenix has asked for drones to be illegal if they are filming in a way that violates privacy.Hermosa Beach has passed legislation to require drone operators to have permits and stay 25 feet away from people.Woodward asked city staff to look into what’s being done in other cities and come up with a report for the council. Then, it would go to public hearings so they can hear from drone supporters and opponents and come up with city laws that will represent residents’ needs.He said he’s received many complaints about violations of privacy and concerns for safety of people on the ground.Police spokesman Sgt. Jason Smith said the department has its hands tied because there aren’t yet laws about drone use.“So in essence, we have to weigh the circumstances of a call involving a drone to see if it violates any of the laws that are currently in place,” he said. “For instance, under the right circumstances, the penal code sections for being a public nuisance or a peace disturbance might apply.”He added that “the department  would have to determine if the act of flying the drone met the criteria for a law violation (and there is not yet a drone-specific law); the person would have to be willing to sign a citizen’s arrest; and we would have to identify the pilot of the drone and further investigate his/her intentions.”

Like the movie Groundhog Day, every morning some 60 percent of Gilroy residents take the same trip over and over to their jobs in San Jose and Silicon Valley and they have to figure out the best, fastest and cheapest way to get there.

Nearly 20 years after plans for Gilroy’s largest housing development were first discussed, houses for the first four neighborhoods at the 309-acre Glen Loma Ranch are now up for sale.“It has been a very long process and we are really glad to see it’s becoming a reality,” said Augie Dent, project director for Glen Loma Ranch. “All the hard work is paying off to create a beautiful community.”Model homes for the first four of 17 distinct neighborhoods, named Ambrosia, Mataro, Zinfandel and Vista Bella, are now available to view. A grand opening was held June 19, featuring a Father’s Day pancake breakfast and guided tours of the glamorous, single-family homes.There are a total of 274 units in the first four neighborhoods.Starting prices range from the high $600,000s to the high $700,000s.Featuring spacious open plans, flexible room options, energy-efficient features, the homes range in size from approximately 2,113 to 3,740 square feet.Residents are expected to move in by July or later this summer, according to representatives from Brookfield Residential North and CalAtlantic Group, the project’s homebuilding partners.At full build-out, expected to be by 2020, Glen Loma Ranch will have 1,643 homes in all.“We are moving as quickly as we can to get more neighborhoods online,” said Dent.The economic downturn stalled the overall development. A Dispatch article from 2005 quoted Tim Felice, whose family has owned the majority of the land that is considered Glen Loma Ranch since the 1930s, as saying the first houses would go on the market by 2007.Nine years later, Dent said the downturn definitely had an impact.“It took time to get things back on track once the market started to recover.”The Glen Loma Ranch development has come with traffic improvements, including a new roundabout at Thomas Road and Luchessa Avenue, which was completed during the initial building phase.Work continues on the extension of Luchessa Avenue to existing Miller Avenue and a new roundabout at Santa Teresa Boulevard and Miller Avenue.Construction of some of the improvements is still ongoing, said Dent, including Cydney Casper Park, named after the former city planner who died in a motorcycle accident in 2007.Work on the park will begin later this year, he said.“It will be a big amenity for the whole city,” said Dent. “We have retained a whole bunch of open space [up to 150 acres] and trail network.”Looking back at the last 17-plus years of planning, which involved working with everyone from biologists and home builders to city staff and members of the local school district, Dent said: “It was really important for the Glen Loma Ranch team to make the plan something we can be proud of. With community outreach, working with various agencies, we are doing our best to benefit Gilroy as a whole and to make Glen Loma Ranch a special place to live.”

Speeding Along The construction on Highway 129 by Crittendon Underpass is moving along on schedule and should be finished in January, barring early rains, according to project manager Katie Beach, with Caltrans.

This is about Silva’s Crossing in the creek by Christmas Hill Park. There are “No Swimming” signs posted, but when I walked there today I saw about 40 people swimming there. I wasn't aware it was a swimming hole. It’s also a protected creek, so I don’t know why Gilroy Police Department doesn’t get those people out of there and enforce the “No Swimming” signs that are posted on the property.

Forty-seven years ago, two young men from Texas met at a canteen in Vietnam.The two Army soldiers, Francisco Barrientes, 20, and Juan Pequeño, 19, had just arrived in the war-torn country in 1969. They were in the middle of being processed when they met, becoming fast friends as they waited to find out where in the country they would be stationed.One day, over the course of a beer, the two young men made a promise to one another: if one them makes it out alive, he would lay flowers at the other’s gravesite.Barrientes, who was left critically disabled by the war when he took an AK-47 gunshot to his face and lost his esophagus and left vocal cords, came to Gilroy over the July Fourth weekend to fulfill that promise and pay tribute to his brother in arms, who died in battle just weeks after the two first met.“I knew I had to do this,” said Barrientes, dressed in full uniform, standing next to the gravesite of Cpl. Juan Pequeño, 6/10/49-2/14/69, on July 1 at Gavilan Memorial Park on First Street. “I can’t let time go by anymore.”He said that every February he remembers the young man, who before volunteering to serve in the military, liked to play baseball.“So many did not make it back,” said Barrientes, who spent seven years in a military hospital and underwent 50 operations after being injured twice in Vietnam, the second leaving him disfigured and unable to eat normally.During his pilgrimage to Gilroy, Barrientes had to stop every three hours to prepare a special drink, his only nourishment over the past 40-plus years.Barrientes would go on to receive two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star for his service, then marry, raising three children as he devoted his civilian life to community service.After 30 years of volunteering at his local school district in Edinburg, Texas, Barrientes would have a middle school named after him.Barrientes, standing at the grave next to Pequeño’s brother, David, laid down a bright, floral bouquet in red, yellow and green, the colors of Vietnam.Born into a military family, Pequeño, was the son of a WWII veteran and sibling to two other brothers who also served.Youngest brother David, who was stationed in Korea for a time while he was in the Army, was only 11 or 12 when his brother died.“It was hard on our mom,” he said stoically at the gravesite. He pointed out his sister’s final resting place at his brother’s side.Not fully knowing how to process the surprising appearance of Barrientes, the story of a promise made over beers while war raged on a foreign battlefield 47 years ago, he said he wished Barrientes had gotten in contact earlier, that maybe they could have had a relationship.For now, the two former soldiers stand together, eyes cast downward, each remembering a young man whose life was cut short while serving his country.

SAN MARTIN—The U.S. Women’s Open was decided by a club grazing the sand.

Lydia Ko was tied for 52nd place before the start of Friday’s second round of the U.S. Women’s Open at CordeValle in San Martin. But two rounds later the world’s top-ranked player finds herself in a familiar position: on top of the leaderboard entering the final round of a tournament.