In two months, we’ve been in (or on) the Western Sierras, Central Sierras, Northern Sierras, and now on our merry way to the Eastern Sierras, so it was inevitable that we’d find ourselves in something called the Lost Sierras. It’s an under-appreciated, under-populated forest area splattered with lakes and trails, with a pristine, charming town...
If you have no curiosity about a national park with places called Bumpass Hell, The Big Boiler, Devil’s Kitchen, Fantastic Lava Beds, and Fart Gulch, then we can’t be friends. It’s that simple. Mudpots and cinder cones and fumaroles, ohhhh myyyy! It’s Lassen Volcanic! Lassen was proclaimed a National Park shortly after Lassen Peak blew its top...
Burney may be a small Northern California town, but it delivered some big delights! Burney Falls is a big waterfall, at 129 feet. To recognize how big, look for the tiny people in the lower left corner of the foreground below. It’s so dang pretty that Theodore Roosevelt once deemed it the Eighth Wonder of the World, though if still alive today, he would...
Besides being a tasty and economical soda pop, Shasta is also a county, a town, a national forest, and a super-huge mountain in California, and being almost to the Oregon border, is the northernmost point of our 11-week trip. In fact, though still in California, the over-the-air news broadcasts are from Oregon stations. Seeing it for the first time, environmentalist...
Here we are on California’s Lost Coast, a mostly undeveloped area, so named after experiencing depopulation in the 1930s, but also maybe because you’re blessedly lost from civilization here, only accessed from all directions by difficult, narrow, twisty/turny roads, and 90 minutes from the nearest large town. You’ve heard of Fort Bragg, perhaps, but...
We gathered our courage and drove the RV over the Golden Gate Bridge. We had envisioned an Instagram-perfect moment, the iconic architecture spotlighted through our picture-glass windshield which had been aggressively scrubbed of its usual bug coating. We rounded the corner approaching the bridge, and …… Doh!! Where are the bright sunbeams glinting off...
Winchester Mystery House adds to our growing list of fabulous, weird properties we’ve visited around the country. Why is this place so weird? Well, its construction was driven by a psychic medium advising a very, very wealthy woman, with nothing but time and money to blow on its strange, 40-year progression. Sarah Winchester, wife of Winchester Rifle magnate...
Carmel, California: It has been called “heaven designed” and deemed “the greatest meeting of land and sea in the world.” And who are we to disagree? While much/all of the nation swelters under a heat dome or is washed away in flooding, Carmel CA temps are in the high 50’s, practically begging us to come out and explore. Exploring is best...
PINNACLES NATIONAL PARK Isolated. Serene. Majestic. A place for rejuvenation! These are some of the ways Philip describes Pinnacles National Park in Central California. It’s a peaceful place of great beauty, and our 70th National Park Service site in 10 years of RV’ing. At only 44 square miles, Pinnacles is on the smaller size, and yet the single road...
There’s big … and then there’s really big … and then there’s mind-blowingly gargantuan big! A visit to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks gives you a chance to get up-close-and-personal with some of the biggest trees on Earth. Sequoia and Kings Canyon, adjacent and interwoven with each other, are managed as one by the National Park...