Tag: California
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Hikes and Rambles: Hidden Falls Regional Park (Auburn)
My Great Uncle lives in Davis and we like to visit him once a month or so. However, we keep very different sleeping hours and we needed to find something to get us out of the house first thing in the morning so the kids didn’t wake him up. I individually plugged each of the…
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California Missions: San Francisco de Asís
On our quest to visit all 21 of the California Missions, we stopped by San Francisco de Asís this weekend. The mission was originally founded in 1776 with the still standing mission building constructed in 1791. The adjacent basilica was finished in 1918 after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed the brick church that sat on that…
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Take Me Away: Planning a Family Weekend in Santa Barbara
I have a serious case of wanderlust, but we’ve already budgeted our vacation days for the year so I have to be creative within the confines of weekends and holidays. Memorial Day then becomes the next opportunity to take a 3 day weekend without dipping into precious vacation days and just happens to be the week…
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Quick Stop in Santa Cruz
After hiking at Big Basin Saturday, we needed to find another less winding route home since my son had gotten sick that morning. Looking at the map we realized it would only add about 25 minutes to our whole trip if we stopped in Santa Cruz. So we headed to the wharf, completely unprepared for…
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Hikes and Rambles: Big Basin Redwoods State Park
Saturday morning we woke up and decided we wanted to see waterfalls. Big Basin was only 1 hour 15 minutes away, but through such windy mountain roads that my son actually got sick. We paid $10 for the car and received trail advice from the ranger before setting off on the 4.5 mile loop that…
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Hearst Castle (San Simeon)
William Randolf Hearst is known as the newspaper tycoon who was one of the founders of sensational journalism that was the early predecessor of modern “click bait” titles. Hearst built on his father’s mining fortune with newspapers, films, a tour in Congress, and his corporation is still alive and well today (holdings include just about any…
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Camping with Kids: Morro Bay
Before children camping involved a lot of sitting around the camp fire, hiking through the woods, and generally relaxing and communing with nature. Sure we never slept particularly well in a tent outdoors, but we went to bed earlier then usual and that made up for it. After children camping involves a lot of chasing…
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Piedras Blancas Elephant Seal Rookery
This weekend we camped at Morro Bay, visited Hearst Castle, and decided at the last minute to take a short detour to see the elephant seal cubs in San Simeon right off highway 1. From Hearst Castle it was only 4.5 miles down the road to a large parking lot and observation deck overlooking the…
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Hikes and Rambles: Pearson-Arastradero Preserve (Palo Alto)
We are always on the look out for close, easy walking trails that I can walk with the kids during the week. The Pearson-Arastradero Preserve has over 10 miles of trails, but we just walked .4 of them up to the Arastradero Lake and then back. The trail we covered was a mixed use trail…
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Upcoming Cultural Celebrations in Silicon Valley
In yesterday’s post I wrote about ways to help encourage our children to be great travelers, even when we aren’t traveling ourselves. The one on the list that I’ve been least committed to was attending local cultural celebrations and I set myself the goal of making a list and marking my calendar for some upcoming…
Magnets From Everywhere 