Hiding in plain sight

About a month ago, I discovered an amazing undeveloped green space along the border between Roseville and Rocklin completely by accident; and once the rainstorms finally let up I was able to get out and do some exploring. As I wandered the many trails that crisscross the area I was reminded of the pre-development landscape near Whitney Oaks in Rocklin. […]

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Throwback Thursday: Historical monuments

Back in March 2020 I published a post (Written in Stones) in which I mentioned that I would love to travel around the state photographing California Historical Markers. I’ve definitely shot quite a number of them over the years, but I’m still not able to make this a full-time project. When I recently came across a book titled California Historical […]

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Return to the headlands

When we visited Mendocino back in May 2022, the waters off the headlands might have been described as a sort of milky turquoise blue. Ten months later, the color of the ocean was closer to pewter — at least on this particular afternoon. I had only a short amount of time to say my goodbyes to the sea before we […]

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Along Putah Creek

I had a different post planned for today but after reading that Highway 128 is currently closed due to another slide I thought I would share these images, shot on March 24. A week ago I was driving home from Clear Lake and decided to take the scenic route — through Napa County and via Lake Berryessa and Winters. I’ve […]

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Grace Hudson Museum: A sampler

Last Wednesday I featured an episode of Huell Howser’s Road Trip in which he visited the Grace Hudson Museum in Ukiah, so today I thought I would share a few of the many wonderful things I saw there on my recent visit. Though relatively small, this world-class museum is packed with so many amazing artifacts and works of art that […]

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Mendocino, at random

Mendocino may be a fairly small village, but it’s seriously packed with historic buildings, numerous water towers, and so many small details that even without stopping to do any shopping — okay, well, much shopping — I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of amazing finds. In this series of images, I’ve focused on a relatively small area that […]

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Hanging with the coots

I’ve seen plenty of American Coots in a number of watery locations, but Clear Lake is the only place I can seem to get anywhere near them. There always seems to be something comical to me about these small birds; maybe it’s just that I’ve come to associate them with the expression “a funny old coot” — what my Merriam-Webster […]

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A Nice view

The weather at Clear Lake has been interesting this week — not the total washout that we feared, although Tuesday was mostly rainy. The worst of the storm seems to have passed, but with a few threatening clouds lingering we’ll have to wait and see what the next couple of days brings. In the meantime, the views here in Nice, […]

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Colorful characters

As I wandered through the village of Mendocino earlier this month I found quite a few sculptures on the grounds outside the Mendocino Art Center, but others can be found randomly around town. One of the most prominent is the former Masonic Temple, built between 1866 and 1872. Its builder, Erik Albertson, topped it off with a sculpture that is […]

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