Yosemite in the Snow

California’s Yosemite National Park is fantastic any time of year, but to see it covered in snow with a clear sky is something I’ve only been fortunate enough to experience once.

In Yosemite, the term, “winter wonderland” comes to life. With several feet of snow blanketing the ground, shining a brilliant white in the sun, even the more mundane sights, like a river seen from a bridge, become spectacular.

Of course, Yosemite is best-known for the towering Half Dome, which was sliced in half by a glacier long ago. Climbing Half Dome is on my list, but not when covered in snow.

Mirror Lake was still nice, but it seems smaller than when I last saw it six years ago. It is, of course, slowly turning into a meadow, and likely the snow and ice make it seem smaller, but it still has a unique beauty.

Also out to enjoy the good weather when I was there over Thanksgiving were the local deer. The one pictured below was just one of many out to feed on the valley floor.

The waterfalls also provide a unique view in the winter. With the temperatures dropping well below freezing, the mist from the falls freezes to the rocks in forbidding sheets of ice. Pictured below is Bridal Veil Falls.

As the sun’s inexorable path casts the valley in shadow late in the day, the low-lying portions turned foggy.

When my uncle first mentioned spending Thanksgiving camping in Yosemite six years ago, I thought he’d lost it. After doing it a couple of times, however, I’ve come to realize what a great idea it really was.

Meeting Rick Steves

I have always used Rick Steves' travel guides when vacationing in Europe, so when I heard he was coming to Sacramento, I managed to convince my editor to kick the story my way.

I called his spokeswoman and set up an interview. You can read the story from that interview here.

And that's how it usually goes with celebrities when you're a reporter writing a preview of their appearances. He was two states away when I talked to him, and that would have been the end of it.

So I was elated when the local public access reporter shot me an e-mail inviting me to meet Steves at a pledge drive in which his show on Andalusia was being aired after the talk detailed in the story linked above.

With my mom being such a fan of his shows and books as well, I brought her along to the station, where we just had time for a few words and a photo op before the live show.

Having never been to a TV studio before, I was equally interested in the whole process, which is best-described as controlled chaos, with three cameras filming while a stage director bounced between them giving hand signals.

Steves was on it, ad-libbing his entire segments, having asked the staff to turn off the teleprompter. He's a pro, and it showed as he was told he had to fill 30 seconds – and made his remarks last exactly that long without having to change how fast he was speaking.

I was impressed by the TV staff and Steves. Despite the frantic nature of the business, technical problems knocking out the host's teleprompter and filling his earpiece with audio feedback, the whole show went well, and the phones in the background were ringing regularly as pledges kept coming in.

I didn't get the chance to talk travel with Steves over beers or anything, but it was definitely cool to meet him. Maybe I'll run into him one of these days in Europe.

Photo of the Week: The Bay Bridge

This is the Bay Bridge, heading to Oakland from San Francisco. During the 1989 earthquake, a portion of the top level - Oakland to San Francisco - famously smashed down onto the lower level.

Photo of the Week: Fannette Island

A helpful cloud shadowed the shore in the background, allowing a good look at what Fannette Island, in Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe, looks like without losing it in the nearly identical background.

Photo of the Week: Vintage Car Races

I took this photo almost exactly a year ago, at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif. Every year, at the Wine Country Classic car races, vintage cars from as early as 1910 through 1975 are raced on the course. The car pictured above is a 1970 Dodge Challenger participating in the "Golden Age of Trans Am" group.

A Quick Jaunt to San Francisco

Last week was Mother's Day, and I took my mom to dinner in San Francisco's Italian District.

The benefit of living so close to the city is that the decision was spur-of-the-moment after lunch, and we still got there - after an unusually long wait at the toll plaza for the Bay Bridge - in time to take a quick run through the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park.

The cost of admission is small - either $3 or $5 - and the garden is a nice serene little spot within the greater Golden Gate Park, filled with all sorts of flora and fauna as well as a couple of buildings and a few ponds and streams. Not being inclined to botany, I have no idea what I was looking at, but it was pretty.

Our next stop was a short walk away - the rose garden. Literally hundreds of roses are planted in neat rows, and they come in all colors and sizes.

We were getting hungry, so we headed to North Beach to park the car and stop in at Calzone's - one of my favorite restaurants in the Italian District.

After a bruschetta appetizer, I dug into my lasagna calzone. Everything I've tried there has been great, from prosciutto calzones to crab pizzas. We were eating inside, but it's possible to sit on the sidewalk and watch the people go by.

With darkness falling, we stopped into City Lights Books - a great place to get everything that no one else has. Unfortunately, we were both after something everyone else did have, so we headed for the Borders across from AT&T Park.

And ran into a massive traffic jam.

We couldn't figure out why there was so much traffic until we heard the explosions.

A local radio station was having its 15th annual Kaboom concert, and the fireworks were just starting. We maneuvered to a spot in the street where everyone was stopped and had a clear view of the fireworks over the Bay Bridge.

The show went on for quite a while, and my mom said they were the best fireworks she's ever seen. I happen to disagree, as I think the ones over the Washington Monument in D.C. on the Fourth of July were way, way better, but she disagrees.

Once the fireworks ended, the Embarcadero was shut down, all the side streets were choked with pedestrians, and made it to Borders five minutes before closing (just in time to grab a book and head out again).

Photo of the Week: Rafting the Truckee River

Rafters heading down the Truckee River last year. I took it on the way to Lake Tahoe, and rafting on the river is usually pretty tame, since we never seem to get enough rain these days to make it run quickly. I remember going several years ago and having to drag the raft over a couple of high spots. Spring and early summer is probably the best time to go.

Photo of the Week: Pacific Coast

This is the view from a typical roadside pull-out on the Pacific Coast Highway (U.S. 1) just a few miles south of Crescent City. Being so close to Oregon, this stretch of California's coast has many of the same characteristics - steep drops and imposing, weather-beaten rocks.

It's a far cry from the beaches of Hawaii, Miami or even Southern California, but the rugged North Coast has its own beauty and charm. The intermittent beaches are frequented by surfers in full-body wetsuits, beachcombers and families out to let the kids play in the sand. Some of the braver (or more cold-blooded) jump into the green-hued waves to body surf, but I'm usually content to throw the ball for my dog and watch the sea.

The towns along the North coast are numerous, and many of them are great places to spend a day or two. Bodega Bay was the setting for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, has a supposedly haunted schoolhouse, and even boasts a restaurant that straddles the San Andreas Fault, called the Sandpiper. A fishing village, Bodega Bay is a great place to get fresh seafood, and watch the humpback whale migrations during the season. Camping at the Bodega Dunes Campground will put you close to the beach and a few minutes by car from the town.

Mendocino is another of the towns that tourists should see. Full of quaint shops, a day will probably be enough, but it's always popular and similar to its southerly cousin, Carmel.

Fort Bragg is another fishing village, and the same whale migrations that can be viewed from Bodega Bay can be seen from the bluffs around this small town. Staying at the Harbor Lite Lodge in one of the rooms facing the harbor will give you a good view of the fishing boats as they set out in the mornings and return with the day's catch.

Finally, Crescent City. It feels bigger than the other three, but I'm not convinced it actually is. Another good place to see fishing vessels and the occasional whale, Crescent City's charm centers around its lighthouse, which is built on an island accessible during low tide, when the island becomes a peninsula. At one point, I ran into the painter Thomas Kincaid as he sat painting the lighthouse. Inland from Crescent City are California's famous redwoods, which stretch for several miles down the coast.

A visit to any of those four towns, as well as others I didn't list, will give you a good sample of California's northern coastal living. I've always had luck traveling there in January, as it might rain, but is usually not very foggy.

As much as I like to travel abroad, it's nice to be surrounded by so much beauty in my own state. I spent many fun weekends camping with my family along the coast as a kid, and even now, and I'm happy that I don't have to drive very far to find myself in such a great place.

Apple Hill - A Fall Must-Do

To me, fall used to mean going back to school and facing the drudgery of homework and – horror of horrors – waking up early for class. Since graduating from college a few years ago, fall has come to mean something else, and the idea of cooler days, the approach of Halloween and the changing colors has turned it into one of my favorite times of the year.

Getting outside during this time and taking part in some of the festivals and activities that accompany the harvest can really be a good way to spend time with friends and family. Fortunately, I don’t have to travel very far to reach one of the best fall destinations I’ve ever seen – Apple Hill in the California foothills.

Originally composed of 16 Apple ranches, Apple Hill has come from being just a working farmland to being a tourist destination. My best advice is to avoid, if at all possible, going there on a weekend – or brave the crowds.

I went up the hill this weekend with my family, and we visited several of the apple ranches, eating pie, drinking cider, eating caramel apples, petting a few animals, eating fudge and watching kids fish – followed by eating apple donuts.

Yeah, if you’re going to Apple Hill, leave the diet at home.

All of the major apple ranches are easily accessible by a network of roads off of Highway 50 just east of Placerville, so though you can spend hours walking around the properties or through orchards, you don’t have to walk off any calories if you don’t want to. All the ranches are easily reached with the help of the maps offered at many of the locations and published in “The Cider Press.”

Our first stop was Rainbow Orchards. It was crowded, but not as badly as some others. Craft tents were set up, and handmade scarecrows dotted the area. A band played music on stage, and the air was festive. We looked around at the various stalls and a trailer loaded with gourds, then went into the barn to join the line of people waiting for food.

Deciding not to wait in line for the moment, as we’d just eaten lunch, we headed on to Plubell’s Family Orchard. Like Rainbow, it is one of the larger places, and there was quite a bit of activity.

I walked past a wagon that had just emerged from the pumpkin patch, where the family had gathered its pumpkins and the father was pulling them – and a cute chubby baby bedecked with sweater and beanie – to the spot to pay.

The petting zoo featured a bevy of goats who were all too eager to lap up the food visitors could buy. The baby goats, being the cutest, got a disproportionate amount of food, causing the bigger ones to climb the fence high enough to stick their heads over and, in one case, eat the food and polish off the Dixie cup in which it was sold.

Walking past decades-old tractors with very simple mechanical accessories, I spotted a clown giving a free show. I headed instead to the booth of free apple cider and made sure I got the cup as full as I could.

After that, driving down the road toward High Hill Ranch, which would be our final destination, our attention was grabbed by a 1920s-era car with a sign touting apple pies. Unable to resist old cars and apple pie, we pulled over and had a treat that was not unlike the apple strudel we had outside Salzburg.

I scored a free cup of hot apple cider, and then we were off to High Hill.

High Hill Ranch, to me, simply is Apple Hill. Each year, after cutting Christmas Trees with my extended family, we stop and finish off the day with apple donuts and hot chocolate. As a kid, I ran back and forth with my cousins in a small valley that sits next to the small lake in which I once caught a fish.

The place was as crowded as I’ve ever seen it, but the line for the free cider samples was relatively short, and we all dispersed to stand in the various lines to mitigate the waiting.

I headed past the pony rides and the wolf rescue display to the fudge shop, which is technically not part of High Hill, but a place I simply must stop at, since they always have what I need for my white chocolate fix.

Had there been less people, we would have sat on one of the outdoor tables and eaten our donuts, or, if we wanted to be cruel, eaten them inside where all the people waiting in line could see us, but we headed home instead.

It seems funny to me that we always come home from apple hill sans apples, lest they be covered in caramel. Even though I rarely eat apples by themselves for some reason, I do truly enjoy visiting Apple Hill and just being there. Once the leaves turn color, the colors on the hillsides explode, and it really becomes the idyllic place to spend time with family and friends.

Lake Tahoe's Emerald Bay and Vikingsholm

My fascination with international travel sometimes blinds me to the superb natural beauty just a short drive from my own house. I dream of hiking in the Swiss Alps and revisiting Austria’s Lake District, but I often forget that some of the world’s best places are so close. Last week, I decided it was time to go to Lake Tahoe, and visit the part I feel is the most beautiful, Emerald Bay.

While Tahoe has a host of lodgings, from the cheap to the quaint to the luxurious, this trip was all about camping. My family and I stayed at the D.L. Bliss campground, which is just a short drive from Emerald Bay, and walking distance to the lake in general.

We arrived to the news that bears were frequenting the campground, and I was ecstatic. I’ve only seen one bear in the wild, and I wanted to get a good shot with my new camera. Eating lunch at the Old Tahoe Café in Homewood a bit later, we saw pictures on the wall of when a bear had stopped by in April, sneaked in the back door just after the lunch rush and made himself at home. We drove back to camp to set up, and I kept my eyes open for one.

Reluctantly leaving the possibility of seeing a bear, we went to Emerald Bay. Standing at the overlook above Vikingsholm, I gazed out across the long, narrow inlet with Fanette Island rising prominently out of the deep blue water. Sailboats, a paddle-wheeler and a bevy of kayaks and powerboats cruised and darted throughout it, and the tree-covered mountains rose above the shores.

As darkness fell, we drove to the next overlook, a short jaunt down Highway 89. Having gotten our fill of Emerald Bay for the day, we headed to Southshore to eat at a brewpub and saw the sunset from the nearby beach.

Back at camp, sitting around the fire an hour later, I had my camera ready to get a great shot of the bear I was hoping would be attracted by the dogs’ food. I grew tired, and decided the bear would have to wait for another day. I stepped out onto the campground’s road and looked up to see the Milky Way.

Staring at the stars is one of my favorite pastimes when camping, and though I’m no astronomer, I like locating the major constellations while I wait to see a falling star or a satellite passing by. After two falling stars and one satellite, my neck was aching from staring up, and I was really, really tired.

The next morning, we all rented kayaks and paddled around Meeks Bay, then went back to Emerald Bay to do something I have always wanted to, but haven’t in the 25 years I’ve lived so close.

On the shore of Emerald Bay at the shortest distance to Fanette Island sits a structure that looks like it was transplanted from the colder regions of Europe, and that was exactly the idea when Lora J. Knight had the house built in 1929.

Knight was a wealthy woman who seems to have been as obsessed with travel as I am. She had traveled to many foreign countries, including those in Scandinavia. Emerald Bay reminded her of the fjords in those countries, and she was determined to recreate the architecture and style of the buildings there and live in the result in California. To make sure she and her nephew, the architect, got it right, they traveled back to Scandinavia and took photographs of a multitude of buildings.

The foundation was laid in 1928, but did not get any further until 1929, when a construction crew numbering from as little as 25 at times to as many as 200 at others finished the house and the small 16’X16’ tea house on Fanette Island which can still be visited by boat today. She called her new home Vikingsholm.

The hike down to Vikingsholm follows a winding path that isn’t quite a road. I was there on a Saturday, and it was very crowded, with parking at a premium. After finally finding a spot, I followed the path down the mountain. Evergreens rose on both sides, and the wildlife scampered across the ground and flitted from tree to tree.

As I passed a family carrying lunch down to the shore, I noticed everyone was speaking French. It turned out that they were from Paris and were there on vacation. It was a great reminder that Lake Tahoe remains one of California’s premier attractions.

When I reached the base of the mountain, I walked a short distance along a winding path through the trees to come to the stone and wood Vikingsholm. Though I had seen the front side from the overlook several times over the years, I never knew that the home was so big, set up in castle fashion with an interior courtyard, servants quarters and a garage housing a 1936 Dodge.

It cost a paltry $5 to get in and take the tour, and it was well worth it. The guides explained the sights and furniture, some of which is original and some of which was reproduced during the 1920s to mimic Scandinavian designs.

One thing I was truly amazed at was the scope of Knight’s generosity. She was fantastically wealthy, but apparently didn’t let it get to her head at all. Though it was the height of the Great Depression, Knight kept a full household staff – in duplicate so they could have days off. She gave her workers paid holidays and even financed their downtime in the Tahoe Tavern in Tahoe City (which has since burned down). She set up some of her servants’ children with college funds and allowed their families to visit them at her home. She even willed them all $1,000 for each year of service that they received when she died in 1945.

The generosity evident at Vikingsholm isn’t just limited to Knight. The second long-term owner was a man named Harvey West. He agreed to donate half of the appraised value of the site to the state if the state would pay the other half. The state readily agreed, and took ownership in 1953 for a bargain.

As I walked through the carved wood door with its iron strap hinges so reminiscent of fairy tales, I appreciated what an effort went into building the house. The materials all came from nearby, and it turned out that my great-grandfather worked at the mill where much of the wood came from at the time the house was built. I ran my fingers along a portion of the wall and found myself wondering if I could be touching the same piece of wood as one of my ancestors whom I never had the fortune of meeting.

The décor inside was authentic to Scandinavian designs, and it was a perfect way to get a sense of what Scandinavia is really like since going there doesn’t exactly fit into my current budget and plans.

Once I was done touring the inside, I stepped into the courtyard and shook my head in wonder at the sod roofs on some of the buildings. They replicate a Scandinavian style, and used to sprout wildflowers, though they no longer do, at least until they are restored. Above the roofs rose the ever-present mountain views Tahoe is fortunate to have. Rocky peaks reached skyward a couple thousand feet above me, and I could imagine I was actually in one of the fjords Lora Knight was reminded of when she envisioned Vikingsholm.

When it was time to go home, I couldn’t believe that it took me 25 years and so many trips to Lake Tahoe that I’ve honestly lost count before I visited Vikingsholm. Not only are the stories of Lora Knight and Harvey West inspiring, but the serenity of the natural surroundings is second to none. And, speaking of nature, I never did see that bear, though I did get to see a great sunset when I wandered from the camp in search of one of the beasts.

A State Ablaze

California is currently awash in fires, mostly started by lightning strikes from dry thunder storms. Yesterday, I was able to see some of the fires from the air, as I returned from a family reunion in Kansas and Missouri.

For weeks, those of us who live remotely near any of the fires currently raging throughout the state have woken, day after day, to smoke-filled skies and an angry red sun that seems to be frustrated by its inability to penetrate the haze.

The pouring rain I flew away from in Kansas City would have been a welcome presence in the forested areas of California, but we're not so lucky.

As the plane entered the Golden State, I looked out the window to see great clouds of smoke obscuring the usually proud mountaintops. I might have mistaken the smoke for fog were it not for an ethereal red-orange glow emanating from within.

I stared at the glowing patches of fires too remote to bother fighting as they slowly passed under the wing. I grabbed my camera too late to catch the eerie effects of the flames, but I got a few shots of the fires sending smoke toward Nevada.

I've lost track of how many fires are currently burning, but I think it's somewhere around 300. The smoke continues to hang in the valley, making for foul air, but fantastic sunsets and a blood-red moon.