I wasn’t too sure what to expect when I arrived at the Browns Valley Open Space trailhead in Vacaville, although I did know there’s no actual parking lot and I would need to leave my car alongside the road. That really wasn’t a problem since traffic is fairly minimal. But I’ll admit I felt intimidated when I realized that once […]
Visiting the American River in Carmichael, October 2021.
You might not think that onions and redwood trees have much to do with each other, and ordinarily you would be correct. But in Vacaville, California, a beautiful grove of redwoods exists very much as a result of a lot of onions. As a kid, I never gave much thought to Vacaville except for those occasions in the 1960s and […]
This week I did a couple of hikes at different sites to the north and west of Vacaville, California. One was the Brown’s Valley Open Space; the other was Lagoon Valley Park, just off I-80. Even though I normally prefer to hike in the cooler morning temperatures, I wound up cutting my exploration of the Brown’s Valley site very short […]
The area around Big Break Regional Shoreline, just east of Antioch on the San Joaquin River, looks to have been a very busy place in the past — rusted machine parts and abandoned boats lie scattered about, faint reminders of days gone by. Nowadays, this part of the shore has been dedicated to restoration and preservation of habitat that welcomes […]
The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is so vast and ever changing that there is no way I could hope to ever see all of its aspects. Every time I go there I’m amazed at how beautiful it is. On this particular day, I traveled along the River Road on my way to Antioch, and after taking a wrong turn I paused […]
Colorful plants and shady paths welcomed me during my August 2021 visit to the New Zealand section of the San Francisco Botanical Garden, Golden Gate Park.
Greenwood Creek State Beach is another beautiful spot along the Northern California coast that I never knew existed until very recently. I’m sure there’s much more to see than the small portion I was able to take in during our short exploration; the Visitor Center is located in the town of Elk and just across the road from where we […]