Despite droughts,  fires and floods, America celebrates bountiful autumn harvests

America, Asia, California, Culture, Europe, North America, Travel

It’s the first Saturday in October at Bauman’s Harvest Festival in Gervais, Oregon and dozens of children have broken free from their parents and are running for the petting zoo. Petting zoos are probably the most popular attractions at autumn harvest celebrations now occurring across the U.S. and Canada. On the other side of a tent selling hot coffee, apple tarts and pumpkin scones more parents and kids are scrambling up a hay bale pyramid or crowding expectantly around an above ground pool to watch local farmers weigh their pumpkins. In a few moments some of the biggest pumpkins will be sacrificed.

It’s Cool, Damp and Cloudy on Santa Catalina. That means no crowds, friendlier locals and hotel discounts

America, California, North America, Travel

Why visit Santa Catalina Island at the onset of winter when it’s too cold to swim and clouds often blanket the resort town of Avalon? Because in the off season Southern California’s favorite weekend escape offers gourmet restaurants without crowds, colorful bars where it’s actually possible to meet locals and hotels glad to provide deep discounts since only 30% of the town’s 1,051 hotel rooms and vacation rentals are occupied.

Trout fishing in California’s Eastern Sierra offers serenity, solitude and social distancing. It’s the perfect vacation for this coronavirus summer

America, California, Travel

By: David DeVoss “In the Arctic half-light of the canyon all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and sounds of the Big Blackfoot River, a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.” The moment I read…

Manzanar: Both Sides Now

America, California, North America, Travel

Revisionist history once was associated with Soviet Russia, where leaders repeatedly erased the names of disfavored revolutionaries like Trotsky and Malenkov from the nation’s collective memory and airbrushed rivals from old photos. Today it is increasingly prevalent in the United States. One organization you might expect to dispense unadulterated history is the National Park Service, but its “interpreters” readily inject p.c. bias. Certainly this is the case at the Manzanar National Historic Site in California’s Eastern Sierra…