Photo Essay: Celebrating America's 250th Birthday with Fireworks Over the Long Beach Harbor

I felt a lot of pressure this year to have a really good Fourth of July. 

Maybe it was because of the Semiquincentennial, a.k.a. America's 250th birthday. I don't remember the Bicentennial in 1976, but it's always seemed like it was such a big deal. With that in mind, the stakes felt even higher this year than they usually do. 

Or maybe it was because of the disappointments of July 4ths past—the promise of fireworks that ended up not being all that visible, the house parties with illegal fireworks that I found more scary than thrilling, the bout with Covid in 2022, being stood up at a Ryan Adam concert in Battery Park in 2003. It all piles on, year after year, making each Independence Day even more important—and stressful—than the last. 

This year, I spent hours poring over local listings of parades and fireworks displays, looking for somewhere I'd be guaranteed a seat and a good view without having to, say, arrive super early or even camp out overnight. I wanted something festive without having to drive too far. 

And I wanted real pyrotechnics, not drones. (I understand these are harmful to wildlife and disturbing to pets and sensory-sensitive people, but I have not yet gotten over my unappeased childhood obsession with them.)

 

This year, the place to be seemed to be Long Beach—which had expanded its show to three different launch points along the harbor for America 250. Hoping to get a front seat to all three of them, I booked a boat ride with Harbor Breeze Cruises.

Photo Essay: A Spring Bloom on the Largest Channel Island—And Its Rare Standout

Many things have fascinated me about Southern California, since before I even moved here—but one of the biggest standouts among those fascinations has been Channel Islands National Park. 

And I treasure each opportunity I get to go. 

I'm not talking so much about Catalina Island, and its charming beachside town of Avalon—but the wild isles of the archipelago, the national park islands, like San Miguel, Anacapa, Santa Rosa, and Santa Cruz. (Unfortunately, Santa Barbara Island is currently hard to get to because of damage to the dock.)

 

At nearly 100 square miles, the largest of those is Santa Cruz Island—and its multiple anchorages call for many return trips to see as much of it as possible. 

Photo Essay: A Louisiana Bayou Boat Ride, No Gators in Sight

I couldn't imagine going to New Orleans for the first time and not taking a swamp tour.

Even though it had snowed 10 inches just three days before I arrived. Even though it was winter and it would be too cold for the alligators to be out in the water. (Instead, they're burrowing in some mud somewhere for heat.)

Fortunately, I was traveling with a group who wanted to do the same.
 

Photo Essay: Cruising Lake Mead on the Desert Princess to the Hoover Dam

Nevada's Lake Mead has been a source of much fascination for me—from the construction of the Hoover Dam (which formed the lake out of the waters of the Colorado River) to the flooding of nearby towns (like St. Thomas).

But while I'd spent some time around the lake—peering at it from a zipline at Bootleg Canyon, hiking around it through decommissioned railroad tunnels, even looking down at it from the dam itself—I hadn't yet had the chance to explore the lake from the lake itself.

What Are These 'Boats' Doing Dry-Docked in a Hollywood Hills Canyon?

Some architecture I just have to admire for its audacity.

 

Such is the case with the Hollywood Hills Boat Houses. 

Photo Essay: Exploring the Navy's Explosive Island Across the Santa Barbara Channel

I'm a completionist. So of course I've been tracking how many of California's Channel Islands I've been to—and how many I can eventually get to. 

I've already been to Catalina, Santa Rosa, Anacapa, Santa Cruz, and San Nicolas. (Santa Barbara is closed until they can fix the anchorage, and San Clemente is off-limits as a Navy station.)

And as of last weekend, I've crossed yet another off my list: San Miguel. 

Photo Essay: The American Military Museum's Island of Tanks and Stockpile of Surplus Military Supplies

Not far from the former LA-14 Nike Missile Site (L) in South El Monte, just outside the boundaries of Whittier Narrows Recreation Area, there's a 7-acre parcel filled with antique military equipment. 

It's the American Military Museum, fondly nicknamed "Tankland."

Craig Michelson is its current curator (and collector), but it was his father—a former officer in WWII—who founded it six decades ago.

Photo Essay: Boating Lake Arrowhead, Upon the Centennial of Its Neighboring Norman-Style Village

Ever since I took the tunnel tour at Lake Arrowhead a year ago, I've been eager to actually experience the lake from its surface. 

The only problem? You need to be a homeowner to get access to the lake. No land rights? No lake rights. 

There is, however, an exception: the Arrowhead Queen tour boat. 

Regularly scheduled cruises take visitors on an hour-long journey around the lake during daylight hours—but if you book a special cruise through Rim of the World Historical Society, you get a two-hour cruise led by local historian around sunset. 

I was booked on one of those historical cruises last month—but the three-and-a-half-hour drive from home to Lake Arrowhead in Friday night rush-hour traffic made me eight minutes late. I literally missed the boat. And all I could think to do was sit on the dock at Village Point and cry. And watch some ducklings follow their mother across the surface of the lake's Village Bay. 

Fortunately, I came to my senses and decided to get something to eat before getting back into the car and driving back home—so I went to the nearest Mexican restaurant, Papagayos, for a margarita and a steak quesadilla. 

 

What I didn't know then—and what I discovered upon my return to Lake Arrowhead Village a month later for my Arrowhead Queen do-over cruise—was that Papagayos is located in the village's former ballroom (a.k.a. casino building). And it's the only original building of the 100-year-old Norman-style Lake Arrowhead Village that remains—as the rest of the "old" village was demolished by intentional fire in 1979 and rebuilt and expanded in 1980-2.

Photo Essay: A Real Estate Heir-Turned-Recluse Kept His Lake Tahoe Compound To Himself (And Accidentally Conserved Much of the Shoreline)

On my way from California to farther east in Nevada, I stopped along the eastern shore of Lake Tahoe (technically in the town of Incline Village, NV) to take a tour of a historic estate known as Thunderbird Lodge.  

 

Locals seem to call it "the old Whittell estate"—named after the eccentric millionaire from San Francisco who built it, George Whittell, Jr.

Photo Essay: A Victorian Home Built Like a Ship Is Permanently Moored at Heritage Museum of Orange County

Formerly known as both The Discovery Museum of Orange County and the Centennial Heritage Museum, the Heritage Museum of Orange County in Santa Ana, California is home to many local artifacts and educational exhibits... 

 

...but its centerpiece is the H. Clay Kellogg House, designed and built in 1898 by Hiram Clay Kellogg and relocated from 122 Orange Avenue (now a parking lot) to the museum grounds in 1980. 

Photo Essay: Santa Barbara's Lil' Toot, the Little Tugboat That Could

[Last updated 9/7/23 11:20 AM PT—video embed player added at bottom]

I hadn't been to Santa Barbara since February 2019—and upon my return visit last week, at the top of my list of things to do in the area was to ride Lil' Toot. 

 

It's a little boat with a big personality—one that serves as a water taxi between Stearns Wharf and Santa Barbara Harbor. 

Photo Essay: How Macy's Lake Avenue Preserves the History of Bullock's Pasadena, 'The Store of Tomorrow'

Most people wouldn't give a Macy's department store a second glance—but I'm not most people. 

Besides, even  though it happened long before I arrived in California, I know how Macy's took over some of the historic Robinson's department stores (like in Woodland Hills and Newport Beach).

I can only assume there are more historic treasures hiding behind a Macy's logo elsewhere in SoCal.

Which brings me to the Macy's on Lake Avenue in Pasadena, California.

Every time I'd drive past it, I'd marvel at what I assumed—but didn't really know—to be a landmark shopping destination. It dominates Lake Avenue, with its wide, low profile—and its Streamline Moderne elements on the north wing catching the eyes of passerby drivers like me.

I'd always wondered what it was like inside, but I'd always be on my way to something else—and wouldn't make time to stop and go in. 

That changed when Pasadena Heritage recently offered a tour of Macy's Lake Avenue—which turns out to be the former Pasadena location of Bullock's department store. 

Photo: "Dick" Whittington Photography Collection, USC Digital Library

 

Photo Essay: Jingling On the Waves at Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade

One holiday tradition that Southern California has that I don't recall ever happening in New York City is the Christmas boat parade. 

I'd watched one from Ports O' Call in San Pedro back in 2013—but I couldn't see much. Though I was relatively unimpressed, I was undeterred in my quest to find a better experience. 

I knew there were other Christmas boat parades in Dana Point, Huntington Beach, Ventura Harbor, and Newport Beach. I just didn't want to go alone. Or do all the planning myself. 

 

Fortunately, this was the year that my partner-in-crime decided she wanted to take up the gauntlet and figure out the best way to see the Newport Beach one—which, for us, turned out to be a spectator cruise offered by Davey's Locker on the Balboa Peninsula. 

Photo Essay: The Twice-Relocated Shipbuilder's House of San Pedro Bay

In 1901, German immigrant shipbuilder Wilhelm (William) Muller bought a Colonial Revival-style house at 129 Front Street in the Nob Hill section of San Pedro at the Los Angeles Harbor and moved in with his wife Elsie and their children. 

At the time, he was working as a master shipwright at the Banning Company's Mormon Island Shipyard in nearby Wilmington, designing steamships that took tourists to Catalina Island—like the Hermosa II and the Cabrillo—and even some of the glass-bottom boats at Catalina. That's when William Banning of Wilmington still owned Catalina Island—before he sold to William Wrigley in 1919. 

 

 

The house had been built in 1899 by San Pedro pioneer Edward J. Mahar for his parents at First and Front Street—but they never moved in, making the Mullers the only family to have ever resided there.

Photo Essay: Off the Shore of Avalon, A Cove for Lovers and Tropical Fish

California's Catalina Island may offer more than 60 miles of coastline—but among its most popular and secluded beaches is Lover's Cove, located between Avalon Bay and Pebbly Beach. 

The rocky shore off Pebbly Beach Road near the rock formation known as Abalone Point leads you to the Lover's Cove State Marine Conservation Area, a protected ocean habitat where sportfishing is prohibited.

Photo Essay: S.S. Palo Alto, the Concrete Oil Tanker-Turned-Party Ship That's Being Overtaken by the Pacific Ocean

"The Cement Ship"—formerly known simply as "The Ship"—has become a symbol of the unincorporated town of Aptos, California (in Santa Cruz County) and its Seacliff State Beach in the 90+ years since it first arrived. 

It's actually a misnomer, because the ship isn't made of cement—but steel-reinforced concrete (a.k.a. ferroconcrete), which the WWI-era Emergency Fleet Corporation deemed necessary for a small handful of ships built for the war effort during a shortage of both steel and lumber circa 1917. 

      circa 1920, Oakland (Photo: Naval History and Heritage Command, Catalog No. NH 799, Public Domain)

Only problem was that the 420-foot oil tanker, built by the San Francisco Shipbuilding Company at the U.S. Naval Shipyard in Oakland, wasn't finished and ready to launch until 1919—and by then, the war was already over.

 

And now, 102 years later, that ship—the S.S. Palo Alto—is falling apart before our very eyes. 

Photo Essay: Paying Tribute Aboard A Restored Navy Swift Boat, the Only Vietnam Memorial You Can Ride

With no plans with family or friends on Memorial Day Weekend this year, I jumped at the chance to drive down to San Diego and take the annual Swift Boat Naval History tour of the Bay with the Maritime Museum. 

Photo Essay: A Whale of a Time in Dana Point, the First Whale Heritage Site in the U.S.

When you live 8 miles from the Pacific Ocean, you might be expected to spend a lot of time at sea.

 

But me, I like to spend most of my time inland—where no tide will tear the sunglasses off my face or try to envelop me in a salty coffin made of sea foam and regret. 

 

Last weekend, though, I had the chance to join Capt. Dave's Dolphin & Whale Watching Safari—which departs out of Dana Point, named the first Whale Heritage Site in the U.S. earlier this year. It seemed like if I was going to try whale watching again, this was the place to do it. 

Photo Essay: Kayaking Across the Eastern Sierra 'Volcano Lake' That Baffled Scientists (Until 2015)

I've pretty much come to terms with the fact that there are some places on my Bucket List I'll never be able to cross off—maybe because I haven't got the means to get there, nor the will to keep trying. 

Or maybe some of those places will simply cease to exist before I get to them—from burning down, being torn down, or simply washing away. 

So, when a friend invited me on a trip up the 395 to visit the hard-to-reach and only seasonally visible Crowley Lake columns in Mono County, of course I said "yes"—and of course I prepared for abject failure. 

Livestream with the Adventurers' Club of Los Angeles: Treading the Offbeat Path in Deceivingly Familiar Territory

I couldn't believe my little world of adventure would be compelling enough for a club full of scuba divers, anthropologists, island hoppers, and treasure hunters. 

But this week, I had the honor of guesting on a livestream presentation hosted by the Adventurers' Club of Los Angeles. (Scroll to the bottom to watch the replay.)