Black Point is one of a series of public access beaches within the private community known as The Sea Ranch in Sonoma County. The other beaches include Pebble, Stengel, Shell, and Walk On Beach, and they are all connected by the Bluff Trail, which runs north all the way to Gualala Point Regional Park. I have passed by all of […]
The ocean views at Point Arena’s Stornetta Public Lands are so spectacular, you could be forgiven for failing to notice much of anything else — unless you happen to run into a few of the local cows (they actually seem fairly skittish of people, which is probably a good thing). But as I was loitering near the north gate, waiting […]
Huell has revisited the Central California coast quite a few times, and especially the area around Hearst Castle — but this part of San Luis Obispo County has so much to offer and it never seems to get old. After watching this episode of California’s Golden Parks I’m thinking that maybe in between trips to the northern coastal counties I […]
A cabin in the trees along the ridgeline near the village of Gualala was our base for a few days on the coast during September. We arrived to fog, but the sun frequently broke through. After a rather chilly night when we couldn’t quite figure out how to turn on the central heat, things improved (of course it was quite […]
The cities of Puerto Varas and Frutillar sit along the shores of Lake Llanquihue, the second largest lake in the country, some 900 km (559 miles) south of Chile’s capital, Santiago. Like the Puerto Montt region, the area was developed by German immigrants in the mid 1800s. Puerto Varas was founded in 1853, and Frutillar in 1856. Of course, the […]
I’ve written previously about my recent visit to the golf course in San Francisco’s Lincoln Park; my main purpose in going there had been to locate the Kong Chow Sojourner Tombs. But I was very happy to realize that on this outing I could also cross a second item off my list, the nearby Lincoln Park Steps. The steps themselves […]
Going through the items in my “Treasure Box,” I can’t stop thinking about how silly and trivial many of these tiny bits of plastic are. Several are of mysterious origin, even to me, and I now have no idea why I kept them. But in among the fairly disposible stuff, I’ll find an occasional genuine treasure, like the handmade Christmas […]
One recent experience I won’t forget for awhile happened on the first leg of our return trip to Northern California from the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas. It was the end of July, and Texas, much like California, had been in a drought for some time. The weather during our stay was relentlessly hot and fairly muggy. So when we […]
I have to admit that until this morning I had no idea there was more than one type of mammoth. When I heard the word ‘mammoth’ I’ve always thought of the wooly mammoth — like the 30,000-year-old specimen discovered this past summer frozen in the Yukon’s permafrost. However, watching this episode of California’s Gold, originally aired in November 2004, I […]