Rancho San Antonio County Park: Rhus Ridge to Black Mountain
See my photo album from this hike. Rancho San Antonio is the nearest “hiking” park to my house, but I’ve never been a fan of it. I don’t like the crowds or the fight for parking, but more than anything,…
Fall Creek Unit, Henry Cowell State Park
I love redwood hikes, and we are blessed with many fine ones in the Bay Area. But finding the “perfect” redwood destination is tricky. It needs to be a nice redwood forest, and some of the more convenient redwood hikes…
Coachella Valley Preserve: Hiking Through Oases and Moon Country
Hikes in the Palm Springs area tend to come in three varieties: 1) Local hikes from the Valley floor up to a ridge. These hikes tend to be steep thighbusters but they usually reward fit hikers with nice views. 2)…
Northern California Staycation Notes
After my big trip to Russia earlier this summer, it made sense to keep our family vacation local. We spent 3 days in the Sierra Foothills, then I took a father-son overnight camping trip with Jacob to Angel Island, then…
Alternatives to a School Field Trip to In-and-Out Burger
You may recall that my son’s school took an official school field trip to In-and-Out Burger as part of their lessons on food distribution chains and economics. I sent a polite but pointed email to the school principal explaining why…
Thoughts About a Second Grade Official School Field Trip to In-N-Out Burger
[Introductory note: next week my son Jacob’s class is taking a school-sanctioned field trip to In-N-Out Burger during normal school hours. We have decided not to participate in that field trip. I sent the following email to the school principal…
Review: Royal Greens Vegetarian Restaurant, San Jose
I love trying new vegetarian restaurants, but the Royal Greens Vegetarian Restaurant in San Jose (on De Anza, very close to the Cupertino border) did not rock my world. My wife and I tried three dishes: * kung pao chicken…
Sunol Regional Wilderness–A Mild (Not Wild) But Enjoyable East Bay Park
Sunol Regional Wilderness suffers from several branding problems. First, calling it a “wilderness” is overly generous. Most of it is a working cow ranch. It also is along the flight paths for both SFO and Oakland airports, so planes constantly…
Mendocino Coast Vacation With Kids–My Travelogue
This year, I decided to take my 7 1/2 year old son Jacob on a one-on-one bonding trip. I’ll take my daughter Dina on a similar trip when she gets a little older. In California, we are blessed with many…
Mountain View Ranked #4 Best Place to Live
Forbes recently ranked Mountain View as the fourth best place to live among towns under 100,000 people. As the Mountain View View points out, this ranking is despite the magazine’s belief that we don’t have good restaurants in town, even…