The California High-Speed Rail Authority prefers to send a bullet train through Pacheco Pass, right past the southern border of our beloved Henry Coe State Park. The Pacheco route would link the Bay Area to a 700-mile, statewide, high-speed rail…
Monthly Archives: December 2007
Family spends three days in the woods after getting lost on Christmas tree hunt
by tom • December 19, 2007 • 1 Comment
They were found today in the mountains north of Sacramento: PARADISE, Calif. (AP) — A father and three children who vanished on a Christmas tree-cutting trip in the Northern California mountains were found alive Wednesday after huddling in a culvert…
Where’d you like last?
by tom • December 18, 2007 • 12 Comments
We had some fun with this a few weeks back, so what the heck, how about telling the class where you went most recently. Rebecca at calipidder.com is excused because she did such a nice write-up on her Death Valley…
Uvas again
by tom • December 17, 2007 • 2 Comments
So I’m sprawled over a creek bed trying to set up my Gorillapod and get a good picture of this: Hey, it ain’t all loveliness out there in the wilderness… but anyway: Nature’s eloquence at punishing the inept unfolds, (spills,…
Totally off topic, but…
by tom • December 17, 2007 • 1 Comment
I caught the Van Halen tour as it swung through San Jose (got a free ticket, no less). Pretty good if you’re into that sorta thing. I was, in about 1978. If you did, too, back then, they’re worth checking…
What do you want for Christmas?
by tom • December 14, 2007 • 11 Comments
I, of course, want only peace and harmony for the world’s peoples. And stuff coated with Gore-Tex (or EVent, because I respect all faiths. Speaking of which, here’s a nice comparison of Down vs. Synthetics from the folks at Sierra…
Hiking on Christmas?
by tom • December 14, 2007 • 4 Comments
Hey, I’m tempted, but at least one day a year has to be invested in the interests of domestic tranquility. An essayist in the New York Times, being of the Hebrew persuasion, mentions how he wanted to have a little…
Hiking in Ojai
by tom • December 14, 2007 • 0 Comments
That’s “O-hi,” by the way. CNN has one of those “getaways” pieces that mentions this detail: Take a hike: Of the 24 hiking paths that crisscross the valley, the 6 1/2-mile Last Chance Trail, which winds through the forested Santa…
Cool site: Weekend Sherpa
by tom • December 13, 2007 • 1 Comment
Weekendsherpa.com is a slick, well-done site devoted to outdoors activities in the Bay Area. Main attraction is a weekly e-mail newsletter. Here’s an entry from this morning’s missive: Once a year Muir Woods is transformed into a luminous nighttime landscape.…