If you’re looking to really “get away from it all,” you can’t get much more remote than Ahjumawi Lava Springs State Park! When this episode of Golden Parks aired in 2006, the number of visitors was only about 4,000 people per year. You’re more likely to see a bear or other wildlife than another camper. And there are no roads […]
A couple of weeks ago I featured an episode focusing on the city of Richmond, which sits on the eastern shore of the San Francisco/San Pablo Bay. This episode of Golden Parks examines a portion of the western shore, just across the bay in San Rafael. Until seeing this segment, I had never heard of China Camp State Park and […]
Last weekend the temperatures were sizzling here in the Sacramento Valley, so of course I started thinking about escaping to some cool spot in the mountains — like Yosemite. I’ve mentioned more than once that I have yet to visit Yosemite National Park in my life; and while the ongoing health crisis means that you currently need reservations to drive […]
In California you just never know where you might stumble upon some historic site, and the Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve in Contra Costa County is a great example of that. This 500-acre park has transformed from an mining hub in the 1800s to a ranching area and finally to a beautiful nature spot full of both native and imported trees, multi-use trails, and views of nearby Mount Diablo. I had never heard of this park until today, but now I’ve added it to my list of places to visit in the future. Huell travels to the Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve in the East Bay. It was once a thriving coal and sand mining area, and is now a great place to bike and hike while taking in the beautiful landscape filled with blue oaks, manzanitas and carpets of springtime flowers. Huell stops by the Underground Mining Museum and also hikes to the remains of the mines. (Click on the linked image below to see the video.)
Yesterday I showed you the giant wooden wheels once used at the Kennedy Mine to convey debris for almost a mile, from the mine site to an impound area. Today, a more familiar type of wheel — the water wheel at Bale Grist Mill State Historic Park. These days, Napa County is famous for its vineyards and wineries; but back […]
Citrus was a huge industry in the entire state of California during the early 20th century; by 1896, the Orange Vale Colony in eastern Sacramento County already had 300 acres in fruit including oranges and lemons. This part of Northern California drew eager investors from Chicago and other parts of the eastern US when folks realized these northern orange trees […]
On Monday I showed you some images of the Cascade Range in central Washington State; today, we have a look at the area around Mount Lassen, which is at the southern end of the Cascades and the northern end of the Sierra Nevada. I’ve never explored this part of Northern California, and until I watched this episode of California’s Golden […]
I should know better by now. Every week as I look through the list of titles in the Huell Howser archive, I have a tendency to skip over many of the place names that are unfamiliar to me. For some reason, I’ve assumed most of them were located in Southern California — so the chances that I had ever been […]
It’s been many years since I spent time on the Sacramento end of the American River Parkway, but several times back in the 1970s I did ride what was at the time the entire length of the bike trail, 23 miles from Discovery Park to the Nimbus Fish Hatchery. These days the parkway and bike trail extend for 32 miles, […]