July 1, 2008
Going Places
Taking a road trip around the Southwest was one of the best things I've decided to do in a really long time. You never know what you're going to run into when you don't have a real plan. Obi (my boyfriend) and I decided to take a couple of weeks to check some places out. We took off on Route 50 - "The Loneliest Road in America" - Hall sold me on it when he started to tell me about some of the creepy old towns along the way where there are haunted hotels. I really like scary old things. Early on in our journey, I discovered something very interesting. The "world-famous" Bunny Ranch (and Bunny Ranch 2) is along Route 50 in Nevada...
I bet there are plenty of scary old things there, but I didn't really want to check it out.
Driving along, I saw what I thought was a tree covered in bats (the flying mammal)...
Nope...just a bunch of old shoes.
Checked out Arches and a lot of other things in between...
but what I couldn't wait for was Colorado!
On the road to Telluride! I'm pretty thrilled at this point - I went to school at the University of Colorado in Boulder, so it's fun for me to visit some places I haven't been to in a long while. There's nothing like being plopped in the middle of Colorado's Fourteeners (I guess there's something like 54 mountains above 14,000 feet in Colorado!). We didn't see Tom Cruise or Katie Holmes...I think they were hiding out in their fortress with Xenu or something. There are a ton of obnoxiously huge homes (and they're building lots more) - it's not the old mining town that it once was. You could barely pay people to live in Telluride in the 60's. It was gorgeous, there was no work, and the cost of living was low - so it was a natural place for hippie-types to flock. Those days are long gone. There's no end to the natural beauty, though...you can't see in this photograph, but there are a bunch of elk to the right.
Onward we went to the land of pinon, juniper...
jackalope - they're all over the place (just kidding...this is Obi - not on our trip, but in South Dakota...I had to throw this one in here)...
...and big, beautiful skies...
New Mexico! Madrid, New Mexico (you don't say it like the city in Spain, or people will look at you funny). Madrid is a funky little unincorporated village (no law). It just so happens that my great-grandmother ran a restaurant and boarding house right on the main drag in the 30's - it's a turquoise shop now. Speaking of turquoise - this area is the home of Cerrillos turquoise...I've never seen anything like it (75 colors have been identified in this paricular type of turquoise). The Cerrillos mine is right up the way and is the oldest mine of any kind in the United States! People have been mining here for thousands of years. Tiffany and Company mined a lot of turquoise from the area in the late-19th century - it's where their signature "Tiffany blue" came from.
Madrid is also home to the Mine Shaft Tavern - "one of the last great roadhouses". There's usually live music happening and it seems like an extension of everyone's living room. We ended up getting ourselves invited to a huge party at an old schoolhouse - all of Madrid was there (all 300 of them). I was thankful that everyone was so accepting, as I think it was my turn...
After 2 weeks of sleeping under the stars (except for the nights when it snowed), we had to haul on home (our second to last night was spent in Bisbee, Arizona...I'm not going to talk about it in this entry since it was such a great town that it deserves its own entry). We spent our final night in Joshua Tree National Park...
I'm embarrassed to say that I had never been there before. I loved those crazy Dr. Seussian trees! Obi and I look strange...I think it's because we had been driving for too long. All of it was fabulous...
Posted by alli in Fun places to go at 2:45 PM | comments (0)
May 26, 2008
Mt. Tamalpais Wildflower Walk
Mt. Tam wildflower walk - Saturday, June 28. Well this is going to be a tasty little hike. We'll begin in the redwoods of Cataract Canyon on the North side of Mt. Tam, hike along the coastal bluffs of the Bolinas Ridge and end our hike with frosty pitchers of beer on a deck overlooking muir woods at the best-view-in-the-world pub, the fabulous german Tourist Club. I love the micro-climate ecosystems of Mt. Tam, and we'll be passing through a veritable greatest hits of the mountain's extensive catalog - redwood forests, oak/bay woodlands, serpentine pygmy forest, wildflower meadows, dramatic coastal bluffs, chaparral - do I need to go on? I'm probably overselling this hike and we're going to end up with more people wanting to go than we can take, but I'm in love with this mountain so what am I supposed to say? To sign-up, email laurasweitzer@juniperridge.com. Limit 15.
Directions and Details. Meet in the parking lot across the street from the Mountain Home Inn at 10am on Saturday, June 28 and we'll take it from there. Please note that you have to have signed up for this trip (email laurasweitzer@juniperridge.com) to join us. Here is the link to directions from google maps ...
Posted by Hall in Native plant walks at 9:26 PM | comments (1)
May 23, 2008
Butano State Park is beautiful
This is a standard campsite, looking in from the car. This was number 14...number 14, 15 and 16 are the best campsites since they are the most private and secluded. The forest is all around you at Butano. Very lush and green.
Behind our tent was a path wandering through the forest. When our three year old took a nap in the tent in the afternoon, we spread out our sleeping pads under the trees and read and slept. It was hot that day, but cool and sweet there in the shade. You can lie there and look up at the leaves and the sun....
The redwoods tower above us....at night we stuff our kid in the tent and sit by the fire and drink copious amounts of wine. We play cards too- a game called "500"- do you know it? When Hall wins it is bad, he is a bad loser and a bad winner. Very superior in victory and very petulant in defeat.
Down the hill (about 40 feet away) is a little pond. Kids go down there and throw logs in, try to make little boats. There were tons of kids at Butano that night. I really don't mind kids- I have one of my own- but the pre-teens scream like steam whistles repeatedly. Must they?
My own darling woke up the people at next campsite at 7 am the first morning. She sat, red-faced and rigid, right by their car and screamed "I don't want!" for about 10 minutes. I was mortified. I HATE when people's toddlers scream, and here she was, making everyone's life miserable. I am sure those people are blogging about their trauma right now.....
Posted by Laura in Fun places to go | Fun places to go | Fun places to go at 11:45 AM | comments (0)
May 4, 2008
Big Sur's best campgrounds
There are plenty of lists out there of campgrounds, but they're just lists - no one ever tells you what's good and what to avoid. I'm nothing if not opinionated, so I'll tell you exactly where you should go and you'll thank me because, well, I've got good taste. In evaluating campgrounds, I don't care about showers, RV hookups, playgrounds, camp stores etc ..., I'm into simple wilderness style camping and so my only criteria are privacy, beauty, quietness and access to wilderness/hiking. So if you are into rustic, simple, non-RV camping in the most beautiful campgrounds in the West, you're going to love my reviews of different regions of California and the West, starting with this look at the Big Sur area ...
The best campgrounds on the Big Sur coast in order of preference are as follows ...
1. Kirk Creek State Park
2. Andrew Molera State Park
3. Limekiln State Park
4. Plaskett Creek Campground
5. Pfeiffer-Big Sur State Park
1. Kirk Creek State Park
Kirk Creek takes the prize because, well, the picture sorta says it all ...
There are places up the road where you'd pay a minimum of $2,000 for the same view, here it's $22 a night - God bless America! (are liberal, environmental hippie freaks like me allowed to use that phrase?). Plus, there's no beach access at the Post Ranch and Ventana Inns (oops, did I mention the name of the overpriced celebrity fests up the road?) - so while Brangelina and Gyllenspoon are enjoying their redwood soaks, you can take some satisfaction in knowing you've got the best seats in the house for the price of dinner at Denny's.
There are 34 sites here plus these five "hike-in" spots - and when I say "hike-in" I mean walk 30 yards down a path and sit your lazy, cheap butt down in one of the most beautiful spots you've ever been. But even if you don't want to be more than 20 feet from your car, you just can't go wrong here. Every spot has the gorgeous forever views that define the Big Sur experience in a pleasant, small scale family style camping venue.
Stats: 34 sites, $22 per night; both walk-in and reserved sites (reservations at http://www.parksman.com/). This campground is extremely popular, so during the peak summer season either reserve early or show up on Friday morning to get a spot.
2. Andrew Molera State Park.
I love Andrew Molera state park. Although it doesn't have the glamorous views of Kirk Creek, this 5000 acre state park stradles the Big Sur river and is a hikers/kayakers/sufers dream with the best beach in the whole area and endless access to the most fabled hiking trails of the Big Sur region. You have to hike in about 1/2 mile to get to the campsites which is why all the RV's and lacksidasical car campers roll right on by and check in at Pfeiffer-Big Sur State Park 200+ internal combusion engine friendly campsites. But if you can manage to drag your tent and sleeping bags and food a half a mile, you'll treat yourself to one of the best easy camping experiences in northern California.
The first time I went to Andrew Molera was about ten years ago when my new girlfriend (now wife) and I went for a backpack up to Sykes Hot Springs (10 miles up the Little Sur river trail). We were just looking for a place to camp before our trip. We pulled into the parking lot at about nine at night, and were in the process of unloading our groceries out of the back of the car when a group of insanely fearless raccoons descended on us and tried to take our food. I don't mean that they were grabbing the food when we weren't looking, they were literally grabbing the bags out of our hands. I witnessed my wife in a back and forth tug-of-war over a Berkeley Bowl bag of camping goodies with overly-empowered raccoon - she'd pull the bag towards her and yell, and then he pull it and hiss. We survived the mugging with our food mostly intact, and stumbled through the dark down the path to the campground area where we were met with the most pleasant little hippie scenario. It was UC Santa Cruz's Spring break, and the campground was packed with stoner college kids, bonfires and acoustic guitars. Now I'm not the drum circle, jam band type, but I was just so charmed by the whole scenario - the warm evening, the laughter, it was really sweet. We set up camp and went to sleep with the distant sound and singing and laughing.
Now I understand that I'm not painting the most appealing scenario with the woodstock-like campground and rabid raccoons - you'll be happy to know that the State Park cracked down on the open camping scenario that used to be in place in the meadow area. Now there are 24 official campsites with a limit of four people per campsite - so while the marauding raccoons are a constant, the campsite is very quiet these days. This is such a gorgeous state park with great access to the heart of the Ventana wilderness, hippie jam sessions or not, you just can't go wrong here.
Stats: 24 campsites; $12 per night; no reservations/walk in only.
3. Limekiln State Park
I've never stayed here but I took some pictures recently when I was driving through. This is a really nice campground tucked away in the redwoods with access to a great little beach. Here are the pics ...
Stats: 34 campsites/$25 per night; revervations http://www.reserveamerica.com
4. Plaskett Creek Campground.
This is a flat, grassy campground right across the highway from the best beach in the southern part of the Big Sur Coast - Sand Dollar Beach. Great family campground with good access to trails and great ocean views.
Stats: 44 campsites/$22 per night; reservations http://www.recreation.gov/
5. Pfeiffer-Big Sur State Park.
Not to be confused with Pfeiffer Burns State Park which has two great hike-to environmental campsites, this is the place where most people stay when they come to this area. 200+ campsites tucked away in the redwoods with lots of RV's, but it's still frickin' gorgeous. If none of the other campsites were available, this wouldn't be a bad option at all. As an added bonus, you can leave right from the camping area and hike up the Little Sur River trail which is one of the best trails in the region.
Stats: 204 campsites/$25 per night; revervations http://www.reserveamerica.com.
Posted by Hall in Fun places to go | Fun places to go | Fun places to go at 2:28 PM | comments (0)
