Photo Essay: The Steepest Narrow-Gauge Railroad (With the Tightest Curves) Survives Among the Redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains

It had been almost a year since I'd ridden the Sugar Pine Yosemite Railroad in Sierra National Forest (and gotten smoked out of the area by local wildfires)—and it had come time for me to ride the rails once again. 

  

covered bridge (one of the shortest in the U.S,), built 1969

I'd planned a trip up to San Jose to tour Winchester Mystery House (blog post forthcoming) and had decided to drive the long way back home—mostly so I could ride the Roaring Camp Railroad on an antique train through the redwood forest of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Photo Essay: A Sanctioned Visit Into the Off-Limits Sanctuary of Forest Lawn's Great Mausoleum

I recently posted about the incredible stained glass collection of Forest Lawn Memorial Park's Glendale location—but the truth is, I was really only scratching the surface. 

Gladiola Archway

Many of its most significant stained glass windows are inside the Great Mausoleum—which celebrated its centennial in 2020 and deserves a post entirely dedicated to it. 

Photo Essay: A Southern Sea Otter Safari in Monterey Bay

I don't remember how long ago it was when someone first told me about Elkhorn Slough as a destination for sea otters—only that it was sometime before I made it to the otter viewing spot in Morro Bay in 2019. 

Leave it to me to make smalltalk about otters with strangers. 

But when I was mapping out my trip to San Jose last weekend, I noticed that if I took the long way—hugging the coast instead of staying on an inland freeway—I could convince myself that this otter destination in Monterey Bay was on the way home.

   

Photo Essay: Dormant, Ignored San Jose Carousel Waits Patiently For Riders to Return

I've visited a handful of ill-fated carousels in my day—ones that are in disrepair or threatened with demolition and have survived fire and years in storage. 

 

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: Where Robots Tell the Story of Old California and Steinbeck's Cannery Row (Updated for 2024—Closed)

[Last updated 12/23/24 12:47 PM PT—I just found out that this place permanently closed in 2022. What a loss.]

Honestly, I hadn't thought much about John Steinbeck since I read Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath and saw East of Eden as a teenager. 

 

I didn't know anything about the time he spent in Monterey, California at Cannery Row, yet I still felt drawn to the "Spirit of Monterey" wax museum that's often referred to by his name.   

Photo Essay: L.A.'s Beaux Arts Library, Built of Bricks and Funded By a Copper Fortune

The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles was one of those places I didn't know I wanted to go to until it was closed and I couldn't go. 

I think I first heard about it when it was undergoing a restoration (and earthquake retrofitting), sometime between 2015 and 2017. I kept my eye on it—and finally managed to take a tour in 2018. 

L-R Observatory, library (Photo: Security Pacific National Bank Collection, via LAPL)

Photo Essay: A Public Tour & Tasting at SoCal's Only Oyster Farm (Shuck Yeah!) - [Updated for 2024]

[Last updated 7/21/24 10:52 AM PT—In May 2024, Carlsbad Aquafarm posted the following on Facebook: "Carlsbad Aquafarm will no longer host public tours due to logistics issues and concerns for public safety in accessing the farm off Carlsbad Boulevard."]

Carlsbad Aquafarm has been growing various types of sea life in the outer Agua Hedionda Lagoon—a tidal wetland that shares water with the Pacific Ocean—since it first arose out of a 1960s-era San Diego State University aquaculture research facility in 1990. 

 

But it was only five months ago that it first started conducting public tours—and only last week that those tours came on my radar. 

Photo Essay: A Rogue Rock Garden That's Full of Whimsy and Heart

It wasn't until today that I began to realize how truly quirky Encinitas, California is. And I think I've only just begun to let it charm me.   

 

A good example is on B Street, just four blocks from Moonlight Beach—a guerrilla art project and community park called Dave's Rock Garden. 

75 Years Ago: The Navy Commandeered A Former Decorating Studio to Conduct Top-Secret Weapons Research

What appears to be a simple restaurant and tea room in Pasadena, California has a much richer history than meets the eye—one that involves the "foremost designer of residential interiors in Southern California in the 1920s" (according to late architectural historian Robert Winter), military secrets, and maybe even Albert Einstein. 

   

Located in what's now known as the Green Street Village Landmark District, it's currently known as Madeline Garden—but it was designed in 1927 in the Georgian architectural style by Louis du Puget Millar as a studio/office/workshop for renowned interior decorator Edgar James "E.J." Cheesewright and his staff of craftspeople and artisans (including woodcarvers), decorators, and furnishers.