-
The dream of the nation’s first transcontinental railroad—a cross-country rail line to connect the West with the rest of the nation—was first dreamed in…
-
People love to poke fun at Sacramento. Mark Twain was among the first. In Sacramento, he observed, “It is a fiery summer always, and you can gather roses,…
-
The Great California Road Trip heads west this week, to the edge of the continent.California’s isolated, sometimes isolationist human history has been…
-
Consider last week’s thumbnail sketch of Death Valley a preview of California’s deserts. As it happens, fall, winter, and spring are ideal times to…
-
We visit Death Valley this week, the lowest point in North America. Death Valley’s depths are all the more impressive when you consider that the highest…
-
The Eastern Sierra Tour rolls on this week to Manzanar, a World War II internment camp. "Relocation center” was the preferred official term.Manzanar faces…
-
This week we continue enjoying the Sierra Nevada’s dramatic east side, with a special side trip from Big Pine to the White Mountains and the Ancient…
-
Just south of Bodie is Mono Lake. You could mistake this pale gray inland sea and its ghostly tufa towers for an eerie alien swimming pool on some other…
-
One of the best reasons anywhere to pull off the highway is just south of Bridgeport and north of Mono Lake—Bodie, a gold-mining ghost town well worth the…
-
The Great California Road Trip has rolled straight down from High Sierra summits to the edge of the Great Basin—a surprising transition, ecologically and…
-
The Great California Road Trip rolls on, this week heading toward the Sierra Nevada’s spectacular east side.But first—weather permitting, and assuming…
-
The Great California Road Trip continues this week, rolling over to the Sierra Nevada’s east side. Wherever you’re ultimately heading, on the eastern side…