I’ve been back to visit the Anderson Marsh State Historic Park in Lower Lake a few times now since my first visit in 2019 — probably making up for all the times in earlier years I drove right past and never even knew it was there. In fact, although I know there are loads of other great places to explore […]
I tried my hand at geocaching once, very briefly. It seems like a fantastic hobby, fitting perfectly with my love of hiking — but I already have so many other hobbies that I just couldn’t manage to fit another one into my life. That said, sometimes I stumble onto a geocache site purely by accident, like the one that caught […]
I’m never surprised anymore when hiking around Folsom Lake to find driftwood shelters; some of these are constructed near the waterline (or where the waterline used to be), but others are far from the water, in among the trees. Most appear to have been hastily built, but occasionally I’ll find a shelter that was created with great care and skill, […]
I love to explore small side trails as I’m hiking, assuming I have the time and energy. Sometimes I’ll find unexpected surprises along those lightly worn paths; and on this particular day, hiking near Brown’s Ravine, I came upon a forgotten stacked stone wall on a hill overlooking Folsom Lake. The lone strand of rusted barbed wire curling along its […]
I’m not sure where or when I found this lighter; it had to be several decades ago. And, not being a smoker, I’ve never used it myself. But for some reason I kept it, intrigued by its curious appearance and wondering what sort of history lay behind its dents, scrapes, and grimy looks. I finally decided to try photographing the […]
On a cold, gray Sunday morning, the colorful roses just down the street in my neighbor’s yard offered an irresistible chance to play with some camera settings.
Later this week we’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving in the US. While I have plenty to be thankful for personally, I also can’t help thinking about what this holiday must feel like from an indigenous perspective. Like most places in the world, California’s history contains both great feats of bravery and terrible acts of destruction and cruelty. Indigenous people and pioneers […]
There are a number of hiking and mountain biking trails in the area of Lagoon Valley Lake and the Peña Adobe. In my search to find a path toward Jack Hume Grove, I stumbled upon the Malaka Trail. It took me across a creek and up the side of a steep, oak-studded hill that sits right next to Interstate 80. […]
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 […]