Grand Canyon: Duck on a Rock

I was so busy admiring the far horizon that I barely even noticed the famous rock formation on my left. Maybe I didn’t have the best angle on it; even after I had snapped a photo of the interpretive sign, I’ll admit I couldn’t see the duck until I looked at the photos much later. Now it’s clear as day […]

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Down by the river side

Secret Ravine is not actually a river but a somewhat seasonal creek running through southern Placer County. It’s connected to Miner’s Ravine and, eventually, to Dry Creek (formerly Linda Creek), a smaller tributary of the Sacramento River. It’s not necessary to know all this, however, to be able to enjoy a quiet morning in the shade beside the creek, listening […]

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Moat Creek revisited

I’ve visited Moat Creek’s beach a handful of times in the past few years but I never seem to get quite enough. It’s beautiful at high tide and a popular surfing spot, but I’m always hoping to get a chance to explore the tide pools — on this occasion they were hidden underwater. The small parking area is roughly two […]

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Sandstone art

The ocean views at Point Arena’s Stornetta Public Lands are so spectacular, you could be forgiven for failing to notice much of anything else — unless you happen to run into a few of the local cows (they actually seem fairly skittish of people, which is probably a good thing). But as I was loitering near the north gate, waiting […]

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Throwback Thursday: Sonoma coast

I found these photos from December 2004 in my Google Photos and was going to post them, until I realized I already shared them back in November 2017 as part of Memory Monday. So instead, here is the post as it appeared back then: I spent most of this Christmas holiday trip playing with my Nikon Coolpix 5700 — exploring the depths of color in stones and shells sprinkled with sea water and experimenting with the varied settings while shooting a gorgeous view of the sunset. I still can’t decide which version I like better.

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Lake is calling

My plans to head back out to Folsom Lake during our somewhat warmer weather keep getting postponed for one reason or another. Last week the Big Guy was talking about returning to Sterling Pointe — but we both decided we weren’t quite ready to tackle that big climb back up to the parking lot and needed to get into better […]

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