Alcatraz: Island in San Fransisco Bay

A Fort, Jail, and National Park

Alcatraz seems to have made it into too many TV shows and movies to count.  It seems to be a particular favorite of science fiction films like The Book of Eli and X-Men: The Last Stand.  For all of the films it's been in, I didn't know much about the history of the island until I visited it.  Now a part of the National Park System, a trip to the island is perfect for history buffs wishing to broaden their knowledge.

I stand in front of one of the many cells on the main cell blocks of Alcatraz.  What a dismal place to live.

A Daddy-Daughter Hiking Trip

Exploring the Nation's Third National Park

Growing up my dad was my hiking buddy.  The two of us would go on backpacking and hiking trips to the Appalachian Mountains.  So when he came out to visit my in California by himself, I knew exactly what activity I wanted to do, hiking in Yosemite National Park.  So we hiked three trails in three days in our Nation's third national park.

My dad and I at the summit of Sentinel Dome.  Half dome can be seen over my shoulder.

The Food Galley. . . I Mean Gallery

Food-Related Photos From Around the World

I am not person who takes pictures of her food.  I see photos all the time on Facebook of what someone had for lunch or dinner.  I just do not see the appeal in posting photos of a chicken breast with mashed potatoes on social media.  Almost as protest, I try to abstain from taking such photos as often as I can.  Sometimes when traveling though I see something I simply cannot not photograph.  All of those random food and restaurant photos (which I refuse to put in a regular post) have now been deposited here for your enjoyment.  And now the awesome, the disgusting, and the truly random food gallery.

Iguana stew with black beans and rice from Roatan, Honduras.  

Steinbeck's California. . . Sort Of

Monterey, California

I am a master of excuses to travel.  Whether I am traveling for work, traveling because I found a great deal, or traveling to visit family or friends, my favorite reason to travel remains the same: Birthdays.  I love traveling for birthdays.  Traveling for a birthday provides me a way to anchor the the trip in my mind to a specific point in time.  Not to mention, as long a souvenir shopping is avoided it prevents my condo from becoming a cluttered mess of presents.  Last week was by boyfriend's birthday, and to celebrate we spent a few days in Monterey, California to celebrate.

Cannery Row of Monterey was once the location of several sardine canning companies.  Now it is filled with gift shops, candy stores, and wine tasting rooms.

Paleontology in Downtown Los Angeles: The La Brea Tar Pits

La Brea Tar Pits: Museum and Park

My first interaction with the La Brea Tar Pits was in the late 90s movie Volcano.  As a geologist now, that movie makes me roll my eyes, but I am thankful for the interest that movie sparked in me about this natural wonder in urban Los Angeles.  Tar has been seeping up in the area of the La Brea Tar pits (now Hancock Park) for tens of thousands of years, and all that time animals have been getting stuck and dying in the bubbling pools.  Now scientists actively excavate the treasure trove of well preserved fossils buried beneath the tar.  

An actively-bubbling tar pit at La Brea featuring a trapped mammoth statue.

Wine Tasting in California Appalachia

The Santa Cruz Mountain Wine Region

When most people think of wine and California, they think of Napa Valley and Sonoma which are located a couple of hours north of San Francisco Bay.  However, wine tasting opportunities abound throughout central and northern California.  Last weekend I visited one of these lesser-known wine regions: The Santa Cruz Mountain Wine Region.  This wine region is one of the oldest in California and it participated in the 1976 Judgement of Paris.  In this event, which brought international accord to California as a wine region of superb quality, California wines were blindly taste tested along side French wines by French judges.  Much to the judge's surprise they rated the California wines higher than their French counterparts. Currently over 200 wineries ferment, age, and bottle their wines within this region.  I am also a little partial to this wine region as I lived in Santa Cruz for four years and tasted at about half of the wineries in the area when I lived there.

A photo from wine tasting in the Santa Cruz area on my most recent trip to California.

Brewery Tours Across the Globe

Why Not Tour. .  a Brewery?

Touring a brewery, distillery, or really any factory is a standby way for me to pass a couple of hours while I am waiting for a flight or need a much needed break on a road trip.  Plus most tours offer samples.  Over the past four years, I have visited five breweries that I will compare and contrast here.  The breweries range over two continents and some very small islands.  However, they are brand names that most folks from the US will be familiar with.  I have listed them here from my personal least to most favorite. 

Budweiser Tour

The Budweiser brewery I visited was in Fairfield, California.  Fairfield is a little city between San Francisco and Sacramento, and I passed through it every time I went snowboarding the in the Lake Tahoe area (Lake Tahoe Snowboarding and More).

Outside the Budweiser brewery in Fairfield, California

Snowboarding Part 3: Lake Tahoe

Beginner, Intermediate, and Beyond. . .

The Lake Tahoe ski resorts will always be special to me.  When I lived in California I frequented Lake Tahoe every time I had an extra day off, or every time there was a snowstorm.  Lake Tahoe wasn’t just where I learned to snowboard as a 20 something, it was the first time I interacted with snow at all.  It was the area where I first went down a green, a blue, or a black run, or hit a jump in a terrain park.  Since I lived in California for 4 years and snowboarded there for 3 of them, I visited most of the ski resorts in the area.  Here, I will give a brief review of each of them in my opinion of the skill level they are best suited for.  If you are advanced you can probably skip the first section, as I am starting with. . .

Beginner

By beginner, I mean probably will not make it past the bunny hill.  This period of time may be shorter for those learning to ski, but for snowboarding it can take up to a week as snowboarding is more difficult to pick up.  For beginners I recommend Boreal.  Boreal isn’t exactly in Lake Tahoe, it is in Truckee, which is a short drive to the northwest.  Skiers and snowboarders could easily stay in the immediate Lake Tahoe area and drive to Boreal each day.  Boreal is one of the smallest resorts I have ever seen, but it is cheap to snowboard there.  When I was first learning I did not make it past the greens of the mountain, and at some resorts that is less than 10% of the runs.  So I refused to snowboard at Heavenly and pay over $100 for a one day lift ticket when I would only be lapping the same 3 runs over and over.  Boreal offers deal like $15 Fridays for students and military.  I took three lessons at Boreal when I was first learning, because at the time they had a great package deal.  My first day included a lift ticket for the bunny hill, my rental gear, and a lesson for $80, a steal as I only practiced on the bunny hill.  On the second and third days, I got the same deal for $30 each day.  After completing three days of this program, the resort gave those who completed it a season pass for the remainder of the season.  I never got the season pass as by the third day I was ready for longer runs at larger resorts.  Boreal also has night skiing on the bunny hill if you are not a morning person like my boyfriend.  I usually stopped by 5 PM, because conditions were so icy, but he snowboarded until they closed.

The view of the lodge from the top of the bunny hill at Boreal.

National Parks: Lassen Volcanic

Why Not Visit. . . Lassen Volcanic National Park

Lassen is one of my favorite national parks for two reasons.  (1) You can see a lot of the same volcanic features as at other parks (2) without the crowds of other parks.  Everyone in the US knows about Yellowstone National Park and its Old Faithful Geyser and Grand Prismatic Spring.  Yes, Yellowstone has the world's largest collection of geysers in the world, but it has the crowds to match. When I visited Yellowstone in 2010, I spent more time looking for parking than I did looking at the volcanic features.  Watching Old Faithful erupt was a little less magical due to the thousand other people surrounding me on the boardwalk.  Lassen has many of these thermal features on a smaller scale, and in all likelihood you can experience them by yourself.  Lassen also has something Yellowstone does not.  At Lassen I saw excellent examples of the types of volcanoes: cinder cone, shield volcano, and stratovolcano.  

I visited Lassen in 2013, when I went on a camping trip with three friends who were also in graduate school for geology.  If you can deal with all of the nerding out, I highly recommend visiting a national park with a natural scientist.  They will probably notice things other would walk right past.  We drove up to Lassen from Santa Cruz, California, which is located about and hour south of San Francisco.  The drive from Santa Cruz to Lassen, which is located in Northeastern California at the end of the Sierra Mountain Range, took 4-5 hours.  So for those who must fly in to California to visit Lassen, San Francisco International Airport is not a bad option.  The high Sierras where Lassen is located get an extreme amount of snow, over 40 ft each winter.  Many areas of the park close seasonally until enough snow has melted to allow safe access, this can mean some areas of the park do not open until mid July.  

We entered the park from the south and made a pit stop at the south visitor's center.  The visitor center is a must see.  A three dimensional map equipped with lights in the entrance will show you where the different types of volcanos are located in the park, and a short film will told us about the geologic history of the park as well as show ariel views of different volcanos within the park.  Watching that video made the trip for me, because when all of us geologists saw the perfect example of a cinder cone volcano that exists within Lassen on the big screen, we all independently but cohesively decided we wanted to see that cinder cone.