How 2022 started was quite different from how it ended in our community.

In early January, students and staff at Woodside High School had to sit behind plexiglass at socially distanced stations to test themselves for COVID-19 during the virus' omicron wave. By the time the Nov. 8 election rolled around, unmasked voters were filling out their ballots indoors.

The Almanac's coverage illustrates the community's progression from living with overwhelming surges of illness to return to something more closely resembling the pre-pandemic moments and milestones that were sorely missed in the previous two years.

Among the highlights, in May, Ladera couple Debra Meyerson and Steve Zuckerman completed their 4,300-mile journey across the U.S. on a tandem bicycle to increase stroke and aphasia awareness.

In September, Menlo Park's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory unveiled the world's largest digital camera that had been 20 years in the making. It will sit inside the Simonyi Survey Telescope at Vera C. Rubin Observatory on a mountaintop in northern Chile to map the night sky.

That same month, a ballet studio opened its permanent doors in East Palo Alto for the first time. Mannakin Theater and Dance company's new En Avant School of Dance welcomed around 100 students in its first fall session.

The year saw the return of in-person community events, including Halloween festivities in Atherton and Menlo Park's holiday tree-lighting in December, complete with artificial snow.

Turn to page 12 for our collection of images that best capture this remarkable year in our communities.