Travel

Thanksgiving this year included a 2,575-mile road trip, 21 relatives, two states, eight motels and a wide array of restaurants, both great and not so great. My wife Sarah and I left Watsonville on Highway 129 to Highway 152 in Gilroy for breakfast in Casa...

Since I was born in Columbia in the Sierra foothills, I’ve returned there a number of times to soak in some of the history and get a deeper understanding of California’s Mother Lode. Heading east of Modesto along Highway 49 my interest spikes as the...

This is the third and final installment of travel writer Tarmo Hannula's account of his trip to Petaluma. Click here for part 1 and here for part 2. As we steered south from Cotati and rolled back through  Petaluma, my wife, Sarah, and I still...

On the second day of an overnight journey to Petaluma at the top of the north San Francisco Bay Area, the Best Western Motel helped start our day with a waffle breakfast, good coffee and OJ.  Wandering through the older part of downtown Petaluma the...

It’s refreshing and sometimes surprising how much you can fit into an overnight road trip.  That was certainly the case when my wife Sarah and I drove to Petaluma for the night last month. Just going through San Francisco—as long as you're not in a...

After arriving in San Diego in 1969, my family moved into a  small house in Pacific Beach (PB) and I and my three siblings signed up in public schools.  Having lived the past two years on Guam—a 32-by-6 mile island in the South Pacific—taking on...

A trip to Las Vegas typically calls for a long walk along the Las Vegas Strip for great entertainment and, in my case, delicious food. This past weekend my fiancée, Luisa, and I made the seven-hour trek to Sin City in search of some...

I left off in the first half of this story about our overnighter last month in Half Moon Bay as we wrapped up breakfast at the Half Moon Bay Lodge and headed off for a glimpse of the town.  First up was a visit to...

While our travels have taken us to far away spots like Finland, Mexico City,  China and Quebec, the road trips my wife Sarah and I have taken over the last several years have also proven to be tremendously fulfilling and loaded with surprises.  In April...

I’ve been visiting Sacramento my entire life. As a kid, my family ventured into the state’s capital numerous times, mainly to learn more about where my mother was born in 1927 before her family uprooted and moved to China for the next 15 years....