Every summer for the past 30 years or so, my wife and I have set aside time to hike or backpack in the high country of Yosemite National Park. We cannot let a season slip by without a visit to the mountains. We took our daughter to all the High Sierra Camps when she was about 10 years old and I still remember carrying her to the summit of Mt. Hoffman on my back. We have spent … [Read more...] about Monumental Images*
Travel
No Place Like Home
In “Cannery Row,” arguably the most lyrical creation by America’s finest writer, John Steinbeck reserves some of his most evocative prose for a description of the Great Tide Pool at Point Pinos—that window into a microcosmic universe at the northernmost tip of the Monterey Peninsula, where Doc Ricketts used to gather specimens for his laboratory. “It is a fabulous place:when … [Read more...] about No Place Like Home
A Sea of Contrasts
Gritty, stinky yet prosperous industrial district. Mythologized parable of post-World-War-II California life. Abandoned, rusty, dangerous no man’s land. World-famous tourist attraction with a curious mix of old and new, kitschy and classy, high tech and old school. That’s Cannery Row: a miasma of contrasts; a place with a dramatic past peopled with a cast of unique, … [Read more...] about A Sea of Contrasts
My Own Private California
Only a few miles from Highway One off Carmel Valley Road is a portal into another land. The Carmel stone gatehouse on Rancho San Carlos Road that provides access to the Santa Lucia Preserve barely hints at the otherworldly experience up the road. But once through the gate, the transformation becomes obvious. The road may be paved, and there may be houses tucked beneath the tree … [Read more...] about My Own Private California
An Elemental Experience
t 1:25am on a ridge 1200 feet above the Pacific, the warm air smells like chocolate. The stars are hyper-bright, practically popping out of the glowy black sky, and seem to form a cozy domeof protection. Big Sur’s Post Ranch Inn is the kind of place where a mystical communing with nature just seems to happen. At sunrise, a layer of pink sky forms over the clouds, and the … [Read more...] about An Elemental Experience