We're pretty sure that Bonnie D hasn't seen enough tree photos yet so we immediately headed for the Avenue of the Giants to get her a few more. The Avenue is surrounded by Humboldt Redwoods State Park, which has the largest remaining stand of virgin redwoods in the world, but many of these massive trees sit on private land so there is a fair bit cheesiness involved in some of the more well-known stops along this avenue. That said, you can still see the Im...

You can't leave California without hugging a Redwood and one of the best places to channel your inner Grizzly Adams is Muir Woods which sits just north of San Francisco. Because it sits just north of San Francisco, and is very popular with the granola eaters from the Bay area, you need to get there just as the park opens or you won't be getting any feelings of solitude as you bond with nature. We managed to get in before it was officially open so we had a...

We had stayed a day longer in Reno than planned and we were getting differing reports as to whether or not a recent dump of snow had melted to the point that the drive through the Sierra Nevada Mountains would be trouble-free. DH has been doing the vast majority of the driving and was not particularly motivated to drive on ice especially since our near term destination was somewhat underwhelming for us- the off-season wine country of Napa Valley (and neither one ...

We were well and truly on the ocean road that would take us on a scenic drive all the way north to Canada so the first thing we did was… get off the road and head back into the heart of California to take in a number of well known sites including Yosemite, Sequoia National Park and Death Valley (with DH at the wheel driving in a straight line is just not going to happen). It was a great plan but nobody told us about the snow in California might impact your ...

After our brief stay in Perry Mason's town, we were firmly on the Pacific Coast Hwy (Hwy 1) that would take us most of the way north (with 1 major detour to Death Valley). An early stop was going to be Santa Barbara but we weren’t going there for the surfing. Some years ago we had met Rami and his wife, Cindy, on an Antarctic exploration boat and we had stayed in touch ever since. Rami has been struggling with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) and we...