Spring at Steele Canyon

Northern California’s Lake Berryessa has seen many changes over the years since its construction in the 1950s, not all of them positive. While the reservoir provides flood control and drinking water for a number of communities along the west side of the Sacramento Valley, it’s also been a prime location for recreation facilities, administered by the California Bureau of Reclamation […]

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The trail at Caples Lake

A week or so ago I shared some photos from an outing to Caples Lake near Kirkwood and Carson Pass, and today I have a few more scenes from that trip. There were quite a few images that I overlooked until going back through my archives recently, and I’m always very happy to find pictures I’ve forgotten about, sitting there […]

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Salmon Falls splendor

Colors, details, and wide vistas — all found on an autumn hike by the shore of Folsom Lake, on and around the Monte Vista Trail. I sometimes wish I could have seen this area before the building of Folsom Dam. It’s clearly very rich in history as well as plants and wildlife.

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Coastal sunshine

Our mid-November trip over to the Mendocino coast was short but very sweet — just what was needed after our trip in September caused more stress than it eased. Even though our November stay started off with a jolt from a minor earthquake (with the epicenter only a few miles away from Point Arena) and we lost part of one […]

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Summer at Carson Pass

I went digging in my archives looking for more forgotten images, and found quite a few from a visit to Caples Lake in August 2021. The lake is just down the hill from Carson Pass on State Route 88 in Alpine County. The pass was named after famed mountain man Kit Carson, while the lake’s current name (it has had […]

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Temperate Asia Garden

I suppose one “benefit” of being poorly organized is that occasionally you stumble upon photos you had forgotten to share. These are images from my visit to San Francisco Botanical Garden back in August 2021. I’ve explored this beautiful garden in Golden Gate Park two or three times now — always during the late summer — and I never get […]

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Miniature world (mostly slugs)

Although I’m not really that great at it, I do love macro photography. And for whatever reason, I get pretty excited any time I spot a banana slug — now formally designated California’s Official State Slug — along the California coast in Sonoma or Mendocino counties. I had always assumed this was a normal reaction until my most recent trip; […]

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Summer monsoon

The final instalment of my images from Southlake, Texas, in June 2023. The Kirkwood Branch was swollen and muddy, and although I could see a trail on the other bank, I had no temptation to wade across. I knew if I stayed on this side and kept walking, I would eventually find the Big Guy at whatever spot along the […]

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