Posts In The “California” Category
James made another trip to the Bay area two days after the previous one, and we both ended up having Italian food for dinner, ableit in different cities. While James was at Perbacco Italian restaurant in San Francisco, Jennifer tried the Red Hen Rigatoni recipe, reproduced in the Washington Post. This was the meal that…
We very much enjoyed last year’s trip to beautiful Santa Barbara, but didn’t spend much time downtown. We returned this year on a weekend trip before James attended a conference nearby, and this time stayed closer to the center of town. Our room at the boutique Palihouse Hotel was wonderful, and within walking distance of…
Naval Base San Diego is the second largest surface ship base of the United States Navy and the main home port of the Pacific Fleet of over 50 ships. On a recent trip to the city, James got some great views to the naval base, San Diego Bay and the city skyline as his plane…
The desert resort city of Palm Springs, California is known for its mid-century modern architecture and extensive cultural and recreational opportunities. The city has much public art, and an excellent museum focusing on natural science, contemporary art and performing art. For recreation, Joshua Tree National Park is within an hour’s drive. And the city is…
Eureka Peak, at elevation 5,521 ft (1,683 m), is the fourth highest in Joshua Tree National Park and the highest that is road accessible. From the end of the road, a short walk leads to the summit with sweeping views in all directions. On our third and final day in Joshua Tree National Park, we…
Joshua Tree National Park straddles the boundary of the higher-altitude Mojave Desert and the lower-altitude Colorado Desert. We’d spent the previous day in the Mojave Desert portion and on our second day drove south into the Colorado Desert to a less-visited area of the park at Cottonwood. The plant life there is quite different, with…
Joshua Tree National Park, near Palm Springs in southern California, is known for its surreal rock formations and the twisted, spiky trees that are the park’s namesake. Straddling the Mojave and Colorado deserts, the 795,156-acre (1,242 sq mi; 3,217 sq km) park has a unique ecosystem that supports a wide variety of plant and animal…
Santa Barbara, CA is a popular tourism destination, with the Pacific Ocean on one side and the steeply rising Santa Ynez Mountains on the other. The city has excellent restaurants and accommodations, wonderful hiking in the mountains, and water activities in the offshore Channel Islands. Those are sufficient enough attractions for us to go, but…
A decade ago, as we watched the America’s Cup races in New Zealand on TV, we longed to watch a race in person from the water. Last week, we got our chance. The current America’s Cup defender is the Golden Gate Yacht Club on San Francisco Bay. The races scheduled for October 2-7th have been…
Late last week, we passed under the Golden Gate Bridge and cruised south to our new temporary home at impressive Westpoint Harbor Marina. The trip from Seattle started out with wonderfully calm conditions through the Strait of Juan de Fuca–amongst the best we’ve experienced there. We originally had planned to run a good 50 miles…
Today we set off from Seattle to do some longer-range cruising. Our goal is to cross over to Hawaii, and we’ll figure out the next step from there. Insurance restrictions discourage travel in the area between June and November, during the northern hemisphere hurricane season. May was too soon to leave, and we didn’t want…