Our week spent in San Diego was probably not what you’d expect. Shows at Sea World, crowds at Mission Beach, “dogs not allowed” harbor cruises …. no, no, and no! Eschewing a mad dash from “thing” to “thing,” we instead basked in the simple...

Our week spent in San Diego was probably not what you’d expect. Shows at Sea World, crowds at Mission Beach, “dogs not allowed” harbor cruises …. no, no, and no! Eschewing a mad dash from “thing” to “thing,” we instead basked in the simple...
Leaving the Salton Sea area, we journed 80 miles toward the coast to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California’s largest at 600,000 unspoiled acres … almost the size of Rhode Island! It’s a weird name, but comes from the name of an 18th century Spanish explorer, Juan...
Our afinity for weird and wonderful places continues. But this place, in Southern California, has weirdness in spades! Our campground host cheerfully declared, “WELCOME! The lake water is toxic, the beach is made of tiny crushed shells that will cut your dogs’ feet in a couple...
2022 brought us a visit to Death Valley National Park, an area once described by The New York Times as “3 million acres of weird.” But first things first: meet our new family member and adventure buddy! Two days after getting Finn, a 10-week old English Cream Golden Retriever...
Most people have a passing knowledge of joshua tree plants from the band U2’s famous album cover, The Joshua Tree (back when music was procured via an “LP” instead of a “download”). A glance at that album cover shows one spindly little orphan in the...
Our final destination of the six-week trip was Yosemite National Park — a trip Philip has dreamed of since he was a teenager and mooned over famous photographer Ansel Adams’ beautiful black and white photos of this gorgeous area. We had a full day to see a mere fraction...
Week Five: we left Redwoods and the coast, and headed inland to Redding in far-northern California. Redding is nothing to get excited about in and of itself, but the nearby Shasta-Trinity National Forest and Whiskeytown National Recreation Area make this location the perfect base...
The fourth week of our 2014 Western Adventure had us heading for Redwoods National Forest, in the far northwestern tip of California. The redwoods have been around for 65 million years and are the tallest living things on earth. Can you say BIG BIG BIG? Of course, how could we...