Tag archives: California

From Zero to Zen in an Hour: A Sublime Time at Nobu Ryokan in Malibu
By Leslie Westbrook   |   February 20, 2024

I’ve always wanted to visit Japan – a country that recently reopened to tourism. In the meantime, I thought I might approximate a Zen-like trip to Japan along the coast of California… just an hour’s drive away. These days, you can go throw a dart just about anywhere on the tourism planet map and visit […]

Nuthatch Nirvana
By Chuck Graham   |   January 9, 2024

During the fall, when it’s hot and dry on the southeast end of Santa Cruz Island, cold, crisp, purple grapes are a must-have fruit on the largest isle off the California coast. It’s also a time for annoying, seemingly perpetual deer flies that seek moisture out of the ears, nose, and eyes. To momentarily escape […]

The Burly Shorebird of Distant Shores
By Chuck Graham   |   December 19, 2023

It was getting dark, and I was tired and hungry. It had been a long, great day, but I needed to land my kayak for the night. The day had begun at Yellowbanks on the southeast fringe of Santa Cruz Island. From there, I paddled the entire south side of the largest, most diversified isle […]

A Grand Weekend at the Waldorf Astoria Monarch Beach Resort & Spa in Dana Point
By Leslie Westbrook   |   November 14, 2023

Why travel? To celebrate a special occasion? Birthday, anniversary, retirement, new job, you name it.For a change of scenery? To alleviate boredom? To explore new regions, to be pampered or just sneak off and indulge? Whatever your reason, I love flopping onto a freshly made bed in a hotel room – preferably with a view […]

Patience is Required
By Chuck Graham   |   May 16, 2023

Not too much of it though, myself and the western gulls were growing anxious. However, all I had to do was observe and study the throngs of those hungry seabirds, and then eventually the drama unfolded. The northern elephant seal colony above San Simeon and surrounding the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse on the Central California Coast, […]

A Sonoma Sojourn to Healdsburg and the Marvelous Montage
By Leslie Westbrook   |   November 1, 2022

My fall trip to Northern California wine country was designed to spend a few nights during the tail end of harvest season in Sonoma. This included checking out the recently opened Montage Healdsburg resort, a stunning and tranquil retreat set on 258 acres of heritage oak forest, also dotted with manzanita and madrone trees. Vineyards […]

San Francisco or Bust! Travel life in the fast lane…
By Leslie Westbrook   |   July 12, 2022

My weekend trip to San Francisco began with a bang. I was bopping along in the fast lane of the 101, when just north of Gilroy and south of Morgan Hill, I heard a loud “clank” at the front left of my car. A few light, rain-filled moments later, I realized I had blown a […]

Harboring Docility
By Chuck Graham   |   May 31, 2022

In 1979, I was a young teen and very green in the ways of animal behavior. I was surfing out front of my home in Carpinteria. It was wintertime and the beach was deserted under cloudy skies. I was the only one surfing that cold, crisp overcast morning. It wasn’t long before I heard a […]

Drought Compels Changes for Well Permits
By Sharon Byrne   |   May 31, 2022

Things are heating up on the drought front in California. In July 2021, Governor Newsom issued a drought emergency and asked for voluntary water use reductions of 15%. It didn’t happen. At the end of March 2022, Newsom issued an executive order calling on local water agencies to escalate their response to the ongoing drought.  […]

Families in Paradise: “Are we there yet?”
By Leslie Westbrook   |   May 3, 2022

How can you — or your kids — not be happy when the GPS navigational voice instructs: “Make a left on Vacation Road.” Especially after that relentless, age-old question: “Are we there yet?” Even a high school friend of mine’s face lit up when I told him I was heading to San Diego’s Paradise Point. […]

Go North Young Pup
By Chuck Graham   |   March 29, 2022

They were a long way from home – a long way from the “Great North” – those distant, pelagic habitats northern fur seals thrive in. Strong ocean currents had firmly gripped these three beleaguered pups that were now seven months old. Malnourished and fatigued, they were discovered by beachgoers on Los Angeles County beaches. Now […]

High Desert Realm, the Arid Splendor of Joshua Tree National Park
By Chuck Graham   |   March 15, 2022

It sounded like loud cannon blasts hidden away, echoing ahead in massive clusters of boulders somewhere in Joshua Tree National Park.  I scrambled up into the direction of those deafening booms, a natural cathedral of granite spires, cliffs, and rock concealing two desert bighorn sheep rams in predawn light. They were in the rut battling […]

The Other Islands
By Chuck Graham   |   March 1, 2022

The northwest swell was heaving into the northern fringe of Prince Island, a half mile off San Miguel Island in the Northern Channel Islands chain. Eleven species of seabirds use Prince Island for breeding and nesting habitat. One of those species, the common murre, had returned to Prince Island after a 100-year absence, egg collecting […]

Full Moon and Wildfires
By Chuck Graham   |   November 2, 2021

Fed by a beaming full moon, the gritty granite walls were lit up like an ancient coliseum as we ascended the Mountaineering Route on Mount Whitney in the Eastern Sierra.  Days earlier, I had my doubts on whether we would be allowed to ascend Mount Whitney. All the National Forests throughout California were off limits […]

What To Do with Governor Newsom
By Jeff Harding   |   September 9, 2021

The problem with Gov. Gavin Newsom is that he is not a leader. Like most politicians he follows the money to keep his office in a blue state. In California, that means the liberal-Progressive political leadership who control politics in the state. The result has been a California that is on a downward slide. To […]

Will Montecito Go Full Speed Ahead with Desalinated Water?
By Nick Schou   |   May 17, 2020

This month, roughly 4,600 households in Montecito and Summerland received a special insert along with their monthly water bill. “WATER RATE UPDATE!” the flyer declared in urgent all caps, adding that the “Montecito Water District has Plans for Delivering a Secure Water Future.” Stating that its customers “want their drinking water to come from local, […]

Alternative Solutions in a Single-Party State
By Bob Hazard   |   January 9, 2020

California has been reliably blue for most of the last 20 years and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. At the state level, Democrats control the Governorship (Gavin Newsom), the Lieutenant Governor (Eleni Kounalakis), the Attorney General (Xavier Becerra), and the Secretary of State (Alex Padilla). They have attained a super majority […]

Kindness and Generosity Prevail
By Montecito Journal   |   July 5, 2018

I wanted to write a quick note thanking some people for acts of kindness and generosity in the aftermath of the debris flow. In the first instance, I parked my backhoe 100 feet from Montecito Creek at the end of Pepper Lane tucked in next to the neighbor’s hedge line. In the morning [the one […]