When I left you last week, I was at the wonderful public library in Brookings. From there I was planning to make my way up into the Samuel H. Boardman Scenic Corridor which covers some of the most beautiful coastal scenery in the south of Oregon. Unfortunately the fog just wouldn’t lift that day, so I spent a lot of time hanging around the beach and reading which was also nice. The skies finally cleared to some extent around 6pm so I hustled my way up the coast, pulling off to take a bunch of photos along the way. I wish I had had more time to do it, but it was really magical nonetheless and I had some amazing views. The broad beaches and sea stacks are really something to see and I’m really glad I got a little bit of sun to take some photos with. In the end, I only made it as far north as Gold Beach before it got dark, but it was a lovely evening…
Hello Everyone! It is wonderful to be back writing This Week on the Road, but not nearly as good as it is to actually be back on the road. I spent the last year dreaming of the open highway ahead of me and the wind in my hair. As much as I love my hometown and my family and friends, I missed the natural landscapes around which I have built my life. For the rest of 2025 I plan to surround myself with beaches and mountains, waterfalls and glaciers, sunsets and wildlife. I have also learned in my life that while some people thrive on routine and knowing their surroundings, I live for new places I’ve never seen or visited. I may love the museums and bars and coffee shops at home, but for me there is always something special about walking into the unknown – a town or restaurant or music venue I’ve never been in before. I can spend my time looking around and picking up on the details of the place, eavesdropping on the local gossip. I like being the stranger in town. It’s a role I embrace. This last week+ has been a wonderful reintroduction to the world of travel and vanlife for me, with a few familiar places, a few familiar faces and a whole lot of something new.
Hello Everyone!
It is so nice to be back writing in this space again after entirely too long. It has actually now been a couple of years since I was keeping up with this blog on a regular basis, but that is all about to change. I am back in California, back in my van Shadow Catcher, and back on the road. To all of you who have been sticking with me for a while, thank you from the bottom of my heart. To all of you who have subscribed to this page in the last couple of years (and probably forgot that you did), welcome! I’m glad you’re here and I hope you will stick around for a while. I usually put out this newsletter on Thursdays and offer an update on the week of travel behind me and plenty of photos of the places I have been. This week will be a little different as I want to update everyone on what’s been happening in my life these last couple of years, and it’s not really a cheery topic. I promise it will be lighter from next week on. But for this week, here we go…
Hello Everyone and Happy New Year! I hope everyone has had a lovely holiday season and is ready for a great year in 2025. I know this space has been pretty quiet this year as there has just been so much going on at home, but I really hope that all of that changes in the year to come. I did have a wonderful work season guiding tours out west which took me all the way to Alaska for the first time since 2016. I also spent a month in the Rockies, a few weeks in the Desert Southwest, a couple in the Deep South and a big chunk of time in California. It’s definitely great to visit some of these magical places every year and to show them to international passengers from all over the world, and I’m forever grateful to be able to do what I do. I met great people, took some beautiful photos and had a few laughs along the way. But it’s also been a difficult year because of the struggles my family has faced at home…
Hello Everyone,
I am officially back to work and my first tour of the season is behind me. This is my 16th tour season and my second working for Incredible Adventures here in San Francisco. I had a great summer working for Incredible last year, one of the best I’ve had in my career in fact, and I’m looking forward to another great season to come. I will still be running tours for Exodus and Intrepid, two of the brands I have guided for many years now, and will continue to run short Incredible Adventures tours as well.
The start of the summer tour season is always exciting. It is full of possibilities and just thinking about the places I will visit and the people I will meet puts a smile on my face. I know it will be exhausting and things won’t always work out as planned or as hoped, but I also know I am up for the challenge. Over the winter I visited an old friend of mine, Brett, at his home in western Wales. Brett came on tour with me many years ago and he asked me while I was there if my guiding personality is the same as my real personality. I told him that the only way to be truly happy and successful in this job is to be yourself. The more you try and be like someone else or act in a way that isn’t reflective of your own personality, the more people will see through you and it will always backfire in the end. That being said, I also told him that while when I am guiding it is absolutely me that people are seeing, I also believe that it is the very best version of me that there is. It’s the version of me who is outgoing and confident and an absolute expert in my field. I think three steps ahead and change my plans based on each individual group I take out. There are a lot of unknowns in this game from traffic to the weather to the individual personalities and expectations of my passengers and being able to think on the fly and make things run smoothly is a real skill. Being a good guide doesn’t just happen overnight. Like any other profession it takes years to hone your skills, but it’s so worth the effort when you do. I’ve been turning people’s dreams into memories for the better part of two decades, and I’m thrilled that this is the skill I have to offer the world.
After I left you last week, I had one more day in the office which I will spare you the details of. I had to go grocery shopping to feed 12 hungry people for the weekend which is always a challenge. Thankfully I got all of that finished at a reasonable time and was able to take a nice long walk around downtown San Francisco and then tuck into a good book to refresh my knowledge of Yosemite and still get a good night’s sleep. I was up early on Friday as I had to get to the office, hook up my trailer to my van, load my coolers and get back downtown before 8am. I picked up my group on time and we headed out to Yosemite for the weekend.
Yosemite is pretty wild right now with all of the snow melting into the rivers and pouring over the edge of the cliffs and into the valley below. The waterfalls are crazy and there are even waterfalls flowing that I’ve never seen before. The river has overflowed its banks and the meadows have turned into lakes…
Hello Everyone! Well, it’s definitely been a weird and challenging week out here. Nothing went as planned, but everything has worked out okay, at least for now. I had already left Lake Tahoe when I wrote this post last week, but when the master cylinder went on my van I headed back to the lake and spent the week with friends while I waited for it to be fixed. I got it back on Monday and then had to make a beeline for the Bay Area to get to the office in time to start my season. And I did make it, so that’s a good thing, and I will take out my first trip of the year this Friday. It wasn’t the week I had hoped for, but sometimes that’s what happens out here on the road.
After I finished this post last week, I went and had a nice lunch at the Truckee Airport with an old guiding friend of mine, Mike. I met Mike when I first started my guiding job back in 2000 and we worked for the same company for many years. He currently owns Tahoe-Sierra Transport Company which shuttles clients around the Reno and Lake Tahoe areas. We had some interesting Mexican/Indian fusion tacos and caught up for a little over an hour and it was really nice to see him. I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Truckee and taking photos. It’s a really cool little town with some great old buildings and everyone seemed pretty friendly. In the evening I went to a place called RMU which is a bar in a nice old house on the edge of downtown. I enjoyed some live music and a couple of beers and chatted with some of the locals. Truckee doesn’t allow overnight parking in the winter, but since it was after April 30th, I stayed in one of the downtown lots overnight with no problems.
On Thursday morning I got up early and had a nice breakfast at a little family-owned coffee shop on the main drag. I took some more photos and then headed just outside of town to Donner Memorial State Park. This is the site where the Donner party spent the winter of 1846-47. I think most of us know this story, at least to some extent, because of the cannibalism that took place as the winter wore on, but I didn’t know much beyond that. It seems like they made some bad decisions along the way, none of which seemed particularly hard to understand in context. The Donners and several other families headed west in the spring of 1846, hoping to make it to California before the winter. Traveling with covered wagons along rough trails was slow going and they only averaged 2 miles an hour on their journey. At one point they decided to take a “shortcut” from the accepted route and this seems to have been their fatal mistake. They got to the valley where Reno is now and could have safely stayed there until spring, but chose to push forward and try and get through the mountains before the snows came. They were only a couple of weeks’ walk from their destination in the central valley and were desperate to start their new lives. The snows came early that winter and didn’t let up for months, stranding them just a week’s walk from safety in either direction. They dug in and did their best and rescue parties eventually came to get them out. It wasn’t until after the first groups had been rescued that they came to the decision to eat their dead comrades. 87 people walked into the mountains with the Donners that winter and only 48 came out alive. The whole story is obviously a sad one, but it is interesting to learn about.
As I was leaving the park on my way up into the mountains, I stepped on the brakes and my foot went down to the floor with the ABS and Parking Brake lights coming on at the same time. Brakes are obviously not to be messed with, especially when I had mountains to cross. I immediately texted my friend Mike who I had met with the day before and he called his local mechanic shop and connected me with them. I headed over there and they said they could get to it the next day. Then I called my friend J.D. who I had been staying with in Tahoe City and he came up immediately and picked me up and brought me back to his place…
Hello Everyone! It’s been another great week out here on the road in California. I’ve spent most of the week in the Lake Tahoe Basin, visiting with friends and taking it easy in the lead-up to my impending tour season. It’s been cold up here and has snowed almost every day since I arrived, but it’s been beautiful and relaxing and a lot of fun to be here. I know that spring is quickly turning to summer just down the mountain from here, so I’m going to enjoy the cool weather while I can.
I left you last week in Gardnerville and when I finished this post I headed up through Carson City and on to Virginia City. Virginia City was ground zero for the Comstock Lode mining boom which took over 700 million dollars’ worth of gold and silver out of the surrounding hills. In its heyday it grew to a city of 25,000 people and had 36 schools and over a hundred saloons. Money from the mining going on in Virginia City helped build San Francisco into the city it became (and was until the fire of 1906) and hastened the separation of Nevada from the Utah Territory as its own state (The Silver State!). When the gold and silver played out, the town’s population dropped significantly but after the TV show Bonanza debuted in 1959, interest in the town grew and tourism became its main industry. It’s one of the better “old west” towns that I’ve visited and maintains a lot of its frontier character. I enjoyed wandering up and down the main street through town and taking photos and stopped in for a beer at the Bucket of Blood Saloon. It turned out that the bartender there was from Washington D.C. and three of the patrons were from just outside the city and south of Annapolis. I chatted with them for a while and enjoyed their million dollar view from the huge picture window at the end of the bar. The sun was going down as I left, so I wandered down the street to the Red Dog Saloon which was doing an open mic night. While others were welcome to perform, it was really some of the locals jamming out on stage and they were really good. I stayed the night just down the hill and it was extremely quiet out there.
I woke up early on Thursday and took another stroll through town and got some more photos with the sun lighting the other side of the street. I stopped in and had a coffee at The Roasting House, which had a great view out towards the valley, and then headed back down the hill to Carson City. I stopped into Bob’s Shell downtown to get my emissions test done. They were surprised that I could use a Nevada emissions test to pass my DC inspection but I promised them it was true. There are a few benefits to coming from such a transient city. I decided to fax it in because that seemed more likely to reach its final destination than if I dropped it in the mail and FedEx was happy to help me make that happen. Once that was signed, sealed and delivered, I headed on out of town. It was snowing which was a shame because I wanted to make a stop in Genoa, Nevada’s oldest town, but it was just too wet out there so I kept moving. I headed up and over the Kingsbury Grade, which is the back way to South Lake Tahoe, and my preferred road up and over the mountains. It’s a pretty steep road, but it was cold up there so we did just fine on the climb. It was really snowing hard up at the top of the hill, but it lightened up as I came down the other side and was barely a flurry when I pulled up at my friends’ house just outside of town.
I walked in to find my friend, Rob, with a huge batch of lemon marmalade on the stove. Rob and I were roommates way back in 1999 and have been good friends ever since. Since he moved to California I get to see him more often than most of our friends from back home and it’s always good to catch up with him.
Hello Everyone!
Greetings from Gardnerville, Nevada! I have popped out of California for a few minutes on my way through the Carson Valley and am overjoyed to see gas prices that start with a 3 instead of a 4 or 5 which is the hardest part about traveling in California. It’s a bit gloomy out today and the temperature is hovering just above freezing, so it’s a perfect day to hunker down and get this post written. It’s been a wonderful week out here on the road, slowly making my way up California 395 on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I’ve driven this road dozens of times between Yosemite and Las Vegas or Death Valley, but I have usually had to make it all the way between the two in a day which doesn’t leave much time for exploring. Being able to stop off and see the sights and do some hiking and take my time is what this trip is all about and I’ve definitely enjoyed doing just that this week. In the beginning of the week, it was pretty hot out during the day, but the nights were cool and pleasant and seeing snowy mountains out my driver’s side window was been amazing. Towards the end of the week I made my way into those mountains and even saw some snow.
I left you last week in Ridgecrest, a nice little military support community near the China Lake Naval Weapons Center. After I finished this post, I ran across the street to the little Maturango Museum which had a small but wonderful collection of local artifacts. They highlighted the plentiful petroglyphs (ancient rock carvings) in the area as well as the natural history of the local desert environment. The museum had some wonderful photos on display, both recent ones from a National Geographic bird photography competition and some great old ones from the area which had been taken by naval photographers practicing for their official duties in the local community. Perhaps best of all, the museum also served as the local visitor’s center and the ladies there gave me some wonderful ideas for my trip north. When they closed up for the day I went across the street to a very nice park where I cooked up some dinner and read my book before calling it an early night.
Wednesday morning I was up and off nice and early and made my first stop at Fossil Falls. This small recreational site is in the shadow of an ancient cinder cone and there is plentiful evidence of the area’s volcanic past. During the last ice age, the snowmelt fed into a river and that river ran over Fossil Falls. There hasn’t been any water there in a very long time, but you can still see where the water flowed over the rock on its downhill trajectory. From Fossil Falls I headed on to Lone Pine and stopped in at the Museum of Western Film History on the edge of town. The nearby Alabama Hills have served as the setting for over a hundred movies in the last hundred years, with their wonderfully textured western landscape and the backdrop of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. While most of these films were made before my time, names like The Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy were certainly familiar to me. In more modern times Tremors and Django Unchained were filmed in the area…
Hello Everyone!
It’s been a busy week out here on the road in Southern California. This week has taken me from the desert to the mountains to the city and back again. I got some skiing in, went to a local fair, drove down Route 66 and went to the original Renaissance Festival in Irwindale. As the week is ending, I’m making my way up the east side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and enjoying seeing all the snowy peaks out my driver’s side window. I’m getting closer and closer to starting my tour season and trying to get as much in before I do as I can.
After I finished writing this post last week, it was late in the day so I spent the night there in Twentynine Palms. I went out for a surprisingly excellent salad at the Cactus Grill and then headed out to the Tortoise Rock Casino for the night. This casino is run by the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians and they were incredibly welcoming of overnighters so long as you checked in with security. I enjoyed a little blackjack and walked out $10 up which is definitely a win.
I was up and out early on Thursday as I needed to grab some groceries and a few other things in the morning before I got started with my day’s travels. Once I was all stocked up, I headed out to the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve just off Highway 62 in the Morongo Valley and I’m really glad that I did. This preserve is located in Sand to Snow National Monument and is run jointly by San Bernardino County and the Bureau of Land Management. It’s not a huge place, but it offers several miles of trails and boardwalks in very different environments. The wildflowers were in full bloom and there were plenty of birds out there to keep me company (and apparently a few rattlesnakes, but I didn’t see any). It was a wonderful place to spend the morning, get some fresh air and stretch my legs. From there, I jumped on Route 38 in Yucaipa and started making my way up into the San Bernardino Mountains. The road was pretty steep and we struggled a bit with the heat as I didn’t know we would travel up to almost 9000’ on our way to Big Bear Lake. Thankfully it got considerably cooler the higher we went and right when I thought we were going to have to pull over to avoid overheating, we crested the pass and started dropping down the other side. I got to Big Bear Lake with enough time to wander around the beautiful namesake mountain lake for a bit before the sun went down. From the north side of the lake I could see Snow Summit Ski Resort and was impressed by how much snow was on the mountain. The Village at Big Bear Lake is a cute little mountain town which I would really enjoy for the next two nights.
I was up early the next morning and stopped in to a shop called GetBoards right there in town to rent my ski equipment for the day. The people working there were great and my equipment was considerably cheaper than it would have been at the resort. Once I was all outfitted I went up and hit the slopes for the first time since I was in Western North Carolina five years ago. The snow was remarkably good and most of the lifts and slopes were open. I loved the west side of the mountain which is full of long, easy trails for “skill development”…
Hello Everyone!
This week has definitely brought a dramatic change in scenery as I have transitioned from the coast to the desert. It was nice to spend as long as I did cruising down the California coast, but there isn’t a whole lot of the country left south of San Diego so after one last walk on the beach I turned my headlights east. I enjoyed a few days in the Palm Springs area and finished my week in incredible Joshua Tree National Park. It’s been a really good week and I’ve been looking forward to telling you all about it.
Last Thursday I said goodbye to my friend Molly, and headed out to Old Town San Diego. I had been to Old Town before but it’s been a while so I thought maybe I could stop in and take a few photos. When I arrived I realized that my memory wasn’t as clear as I thought it was. There was a lot to see there and I ended up staying for a good chunk of the day. Old Town has a stretch of commercial street which ends at Old Town State Park and the State Park has a ton of historic buildings and plenty of shops as well. There was a woman singing and playing her guitar at the entrance to the State Park and it was beautiful music with a wonderful message of peace and love and I enjoyed sitting and listening to her play for a while. Then I made my way down into the parj, poking my head into places and taking some photos. I think my favorite spot was the old tobacco store which looks amazing inside right down to the proprietor who was dressed in period clothes. In his younger days he had been stationed at Quantico for a few years so we chatted about the East Coast a little bit and he let me take a photo of him which I really like. Breaking a bit from the spirit of Old Town I had a fantastic Nepalese lunch at a place called Bhojan Griha a couple of blocks up from the park and it was the most flavorful meal I’ve had in a long time. After lunch I meandered a bit more and took a few more photos. The only bad part about my afternoon was that the sky was so grey. I learned that the locals call the coming time of year the “May Grey” which is followed by the “June Gloom” and that grey skies are not at all uncommon, but it was still a shame that I couldn’t get the photos I wanted with blue skies behind them.
In the late afternoon I headed down to the San Diego waterfront to pay a quick visit to the Maritime Museum there. I had been to this museum a few times, but wanted to revisit one of my favorite ships there, the Star of India. My attention was first called to this ship during my very first season as a tour guide when my two passengers from the Isle of Man (both of whom I saw this past January) told me that this ship had been built on their island. It was built on the Isle of Man in 1863, has circumnavigated the globe 21 times and is considered the world’s oldest active sailing ship. After visiting the Isle of Man this winter, I thought it was appropriate to stop and have another quick look at this beautiful tall ship. From there, I made my way over the amazingly high bridge to Coronado, right across from downtown San Diego but considered a whole different city. I wanted to go and see the Hotel Coronado, the area’s most famous hotel and certainly a San Diego area landmark. Built in 1888, it was the largest wooden structure in the United States until 1944 and it is a stunning building. The general public is more than welcome to visit the lobby, shops, bars, restaurants and beach and I may have taken a quick peak upstairs as well. I enjoyed a quick beer at the old mahogany bar and a lovely stroll along the beach as the sun went down. From there I wandered a few blocks down to the Village Theater and caught the last showing of Air of the day. This is an entertaining movie about the origins of Nike’s Air Jordans and I would have never guessed that a movie about a shoe could be so good. The theater itself was adorable with lit murals on the walls depicting the grand hotel up the street and reasonably priced popcorn to boot. I enjoyed the show and settled in nearby for the night…
Hello Everyone!
I’m writing to you this week from grey and chilly San Diego. I began this week with a trip to Catalina Island and have spent the rest of it moving down the coast and catching up with friends along the way. It’s been great to see so many familiar faces and catch up on what they’ve been up to, but I haven’t gotten any photos edited or published this week as a result. I do have some great photo posts lined up though and I will definitely get to a few of them this week. I’ve had some fun adventures this week but it’s also been fairly quiet.
I was up early on Wednesday and off to Catalina Island from Long Beach. Parking at the terminal wasn’t cheap, but it was quick and easy and very convenient to the boat. The Catalina Express is huge and very comfortable and stable. It was a beautiful sunny morning, so I nabbed a seat on the top deck and got a little bit of sun on the way out to the island. When we arrived in Avalon (the main town on Catalina), I was a bit overwhelmed with how crowded it was. There was a cruise ship in that day so there were hundreds of people going here and there and everywhere but the crowds would die down as the day progressed. I had a room booked at the Catalina Island Inn, so I popped in to see if I could leave my bag there for the day. They couldn’t have been nicer or more accommodating and even took my number so they could call me when my room was ready. I left my bag, took my camera and headed out into the day.
I very quickly started to feel the charms of Avalon despite the hustle and bustle of a busy day. Catalina is known for its glazed clay tiles and they adorned buildings, benches and fountains in colorful mosaics. I wandered down the waterfront and past the Tuna Club and the Yacht Club, both open to members only but both housed in beautiful old buildings that I enjoyed looking at. Then I came to the Casino which towers above the town of Avalon like the Coliseum in Ancient Rome, visible from almost everywhere you go. Built almost a hundred years ago, the Casino has never been a place for gambling, but rather takes its name from an old Italian word for a small house, but which generally meant a place to socialize and dance. I took a tour of the Casino which, while it cost more than my visit to the Hearst Castle, was excellent. Downstairs is home to a grand theater which was the first theater in the country built specifically to show “talkies” or movies with sound. It’s still used as a theater today, showing movies on Friday and Saturday nights. My tour also included the dressing rooms and the incredible upstairs ballroom – the largest circular, free standing ballroom in the world which has a 180 foot diameter dancefloor and can accommodate 3,000 dancers (which it does on New Year’s Eve and other special occasions).
The Casino was built by William Wrigley Jr. who had purchased almost all of Catalina Island back in 1919 with money made from his chewing gum empire. Wrigley was responsible for most of what we see on Catalina today, including the 85% of the island controlled by the Catalina Conservancy which will remain undeveloped in perpetuity. Wrigley owned the Chicago Cubs who played (and still play) at Wrigley Field and for many years they had their Spring Training on Catalina Island…
