Off along a short side trail at the Petrified Forest in Calistoga, I found an extra bit of geological history — a large ash fall left over from the eruption of Mt. St. Helena 3 million years ago. Although the entire site is scattered with concrete-like remants of the ash deposits (like the one in the image below), this spot […]
Note: This post contains NO snake pictures, although there are fence lizards and a couple of insects! The animals around us may be quietly going about the regular business of living, but sometimes it’s tough not to imagine a bit of an attitude in their posture or in the way they pause to check us out. I shot these images […]
I’m continuing my look back to September 2022 which I began yesterday, and today’s post includes images from Black Point Beach in Sea Ranch and Gerstle Cove near Salt Point (Sonoma County) and the Point Arena Lighthouse (Mendocino County). This was really one of the nicest coastal trips we’ve had, and I would be very happy to spend more time […]
Oh, look — I discovered another bunch of images from last year that I had completely forgotten about! I shot all but one of these with my beloved Fujifilm camera while exploring around the west shoreline of Eagle Lake, in the small community of Spalding (Google seems to think it’s “Spaulding”). I would love to go back and see what […]
It was six months ago, when we were at the Mendocino coast in late October 2023, that I finally got a chance to visit Russian Gulch State Park (not to be confused with Sonoma County’s Russian Gulch Beach). The clouds threatened rain and even delivered a few scattered showers; still, the day seemed perfect to me. While the Big Guy […]
I had been hoping to go check out San Francisco’s Aquatic Park Bathhouse for a few years; when I finally got there last August I was slightly disappointed to find the upper floor blocked off. But despite my disappointment, there was still a lot of fascinating items on display in this beautiful building, constructed in the mid 1930s. The Aquatic […]
I guess this is the time of year when I usually start looking forward to August — when I spend a week in San Francisco, using public transportation to get around and exploring various parts of the city. Part of the fun is photographing some of the views from my window seat on the Amtrak California Corridor train. Empire State […]
First of all, I should say that I didn’t actually hike Fern Canyon on this coastal trip. Secondly, there are a surprising number of places in California called Fern Canyon; Huell Howser visited one such trail in Humboldt County’s Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, and there are two that I know of in Mendocino County. The name itself sounds so […]
We found the tide extremely low when we arrived at Doran County Park (south of Bodega Bay), where we always stop to collect ghost shrimp. Although there seemed to be a surprising number of people using the beach — across the road from where we park — we had the bay side completely to ourselves. I did notice, though, that […]