Chilling on the California Coast
Recognizable as the nimble HMS Interceptor in the 2003 Disney movie blockbuster “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” the replica tall ship Lady Washington sailed into Pillar Point Harbor this week for a two-week stay. We clambered aboard for a visit. Continue reading “Lady Washington Ties Up at Pillar Point Harbor; Tall Ship Sailed in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’”
Love it. Hate it. Hide from it. Everyone living Coastside has an opinion about the annual Half Moon Bay Art and Pumpkin Festival. Our opinion? Embrace the madness. And here are a few tips for enjoying next year’s gourd gala. Continue reading “How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival”
NOTE: We’re sorry to report that shortly after posting this story we discovered that Z Pie had closed several weeks earlier. But there are still plenty of fruit pie options on the road to Tahoe. Enjoy!
Lots of travelers enjoy stopping for a sweet slice of fruit pie at an Apple Hill orchard on the road to Lake Tahoe. But the most unique pies in the region just may be the savory variety available at a tiny pot pie restaurant not far away in Placerville.
Who knew? Continue reading “Pie Shopping on the Road to Tahoe; Don’t You Love New Traditions?”
Why walk a labyrinth? Actor Jeff Bridges, who portrayed the ultimate slacker in “The Big Lebowski,” offers this:
“With a labyrinth, you make a choice to go in – and once you’ve chosen, around and around you go. But you always find your way to the center.”
Nice centering metaphor. That is until someone completely lacking in inner peace pitches the labyrinth’s border stones into the ocean. Bummer. Continue reading “Quest for a Coastside Labyrinth Travels from a Quarry to Lands End and Back Again”
A hillside of shiny obsidian born of liquid rock and thrown by Mother Nature herself atop a fiery geologic potter’s wheel rises from the Newberry Volcano just south of Bend, Oregon. It’s so cool they named a beer after it!
It smells bad. It tastes bad. A sign cautions moderation. Yet the lithia mineral water streaming from eight cheery bubblers in the town square of Ashland, Oregon, has attracted health naïfs and the merely curious for more than 100 years.
Who knew? Continue reading “Public Fountain Bubbles Up Foul-Tasting Mineral Brew; Go ahead, Have a Sip”