Photo artist

I’ve played around with this fun photo editing website a few times now since I first discovered it in January this year, and I do like some of the finished products. But I’ve also realized a couple of things. I can’t help wishing there were more options. Although there are nearly 40 different cool effects to choose from, after using […]

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Memory Monday, Week 149

A couple of weeks ago Memory Monday visited the Gold Discovery Park at Coloma; this week I have images, shot in 1985, from two other day trip destinations near Sacramento. Sadly, the first one is no longer accessible. Daffodil Hill, located near the small foothill town of Volcano, permanently closed in 2019 after being in operation for more than 80 […]

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Scenic history

It’s fairly common knowledge that Fort Ross in Sonoma County was founded by Russians in the 1800s, when they came to the Pacific Northwest to hunt for furs and to trade with the indigenous people. Fort Ross was actually the southernmost limit of their contact. At Gualala Point Park, just south of the town of Gualala, we came across a […]

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Memory Monday, Week 146

This week, images of the Northern California coast and some trains from Southern California and Oregon. I’m not sure of the location of all but two of the coastal shots, although they look very much like some of the places I’ve visited in recent years in Sonoma and Mendocino counties. The Harbor seals are also a familiar sight as they […]

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Bourn Cottage

It’s been more than a decade since my last visit to the Empire Mine State Park in Grass Valley, so last Wednesday I returned to see how much exploring I could fit into roughly four hours. I was originally planning to stay only two hours, but the time flew by so quickly! Even though the interior of the buildings was […]

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California Missions, Part 10

I’ve nearly come to the end of my mom’s slides showing Mission La Purísima Concepción in 1982, with only one more week to go. This week, along with some interior shots from the mission’s museum, there’s a 1979 image of the amazing Moreton Bay fig tree in Santa Barbara. Listed on the California Register of Big Trees, the Moreton Bay […]

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California Missions, Part 9

Today I have an image of each of the three missions featured in Wednesday’s post, San Francisco de Asis, San Rafael Arcangel, and San Francisco Solano. Although I’ve never visited them, these three missions have been more interesting to me, partly because they are all in Northern California. These three missions perfectly illustrate the widely varying fortunes of California’s historic […]

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