California has quite a number of beautiful and historic lighthouses up and down the coast, some of which are still operating via automation. I’ve been lucky enough to visit the Point Loma lighthouse in San Diego and, more recently, the Point Arena lighthouse in Mendocino County. The Point Sur Lightstation, a few miles south of Monterey and Carmel, is definitely […]
I’ve never actually been to the Big Creek area, but whenever I hear the name I always think about my first real job, when I worked in a home-based office for one of my Sacramento State University professors. She did consulting work for companies like Southern California Edison, and my task was to type up the oral history interviews she […]
For 24 years, the juried international ceramics art show known as Feats of Clay arrived every March inside the Gladding McBean terra cotta factory in Lincoln, California. Things changed in 2012, however; the event disappeared, and when it returned in 2013, it had a new organizer, a new location, and a new name: America’s ClayFest. For 2022, the month-long art […]
This episode of California’s Gold, which originally aired in 2004, provides a perfect finish for Black History Month — the story of two inspiring men, Col. Charles Young and George Washington Carver, and a memorial lost to history until 2003. It’s one of my favorites, and maybe it will be one of yours too. Huell joins the centennial celebration of […]
Back in the summer of 2004 I was enjoying my new (actually refurbished) Nikon Coolpix 5700; and while I’m now certain I never learned to use all its features properly, having this camera definitely got me out and about. I started to learn how to look at the world through a camera and to see things I’d never paid much […]
I chose to feature this Classic episode of California’s Gold, first aired in 1992, because I recently saw an Instagram post by California State Parks highlighting the town of Allensworth as part of Black History Month. One thing that struck me during this episode was the number of people who said they had only recently learned of Col. Allensworth and […]
I swear I’m not trying to drop any hints, but since Valentine’s Day is coming up next Monday (yes, that soon!) I thought today would be a good time to feature this Classic episode of California’s Gold. Although the historic Polk Street location is no longer a See’s Candy store, you can still find three retail outlets within San Francisco. […]
I was able to get extremely close to the fire apparatus in the Angels Camp Museum both last summer and in September 2018; by contrast, on my visit to Auburn’s historic red-and-white-striped firehouse, I found everything locked up tight. I shot my photos of the horseless carriage through the windows. Finally, a wire screen protected the entrance to the old […]
I love to explore small side trails as I’m hiking, assuming I have the time and energy. Sometimes I’ll find unexpected surprises along those lightly worn paths; and on this particular day, hiking near Brown’s Ravine, I came upon a forgotten stacked stone wall on a hill overlooking Folsom Lake. The lone strand of rusted barbed wire curling along its […]