Gambolin Man waxes effusively on the charms of Coyote Hills Regional Park, which sits on the edge of the San Francisco Bay just west of Fremont. The Gamboleer notes that he’s lived in the Bay Area for ages but is only now getting around to visiting Coyote Hills, and he’s downright amazed at how much the little park’s got going for it. This is a fairly familiar refrain among Bay Area outdoorspeople — they’re so hooked on the awesome splendor of the High Sierra that they overlook a lot of cool stuff in their own back yards. In a way this is nice, because it keeps the crowds down on the trails around here. (Here’s my account of my own Coyote Hills visit last year, on my birthday).

Jill in Alaska describes what it’s like to work on a small-town weekly newspaper. The only reason why it’s not a sweatshop is that it’s, well, in Alaska.

Recent discoveries

I’ve really taken a liking to The Dude Abides, a blog belonging to an ex-lawyer who quit his job and moved to Bozeman, Montana. The headlines for his posts are lyrics of rock ‘n’ roll songs (“I met a divorcee in New York City…” All these years, I never realized that word in “Honky Tonk Woman” was “divorcee” ), most of which are songs in my collection somewhere. The Dude can write, for sure.

Another dude, named Rob, is about to go trekking across Nepal. He’s only just getting started but he’s already got a few choice posts about the local color and the obnoxious American tourists.

UT Outdoors belongs to a guy in Utah who is young and daring (or perhaps insane). He and his pals are into canyoneering, which is sorta like rock climbing, except you start out by going down. And then you get to go swimming. He has a couple shots of his buddies wedged between canyon walls that are positively claustrophobic — they gave me the heebie-jeebies the same way pictures of people standing next to cliff edges do.

Speaking of Utah, we’re planning a five-day vacation near Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks and the Grand Canyon North Rim next September. I found a couple nifty blogs by somebody who lives down there. North Rim here; Bryce Canyon here. Can’t wait to check out all those wacky rocks.