Standing before the Lone Cypress
The famed, granite-set Monterey Cypress along 17-Mile Drive in Pebble Beach is oft-photographed. But is there still something to be seen in it?
View ArticleA different view of Yosemite's Half Dome
Half Dome in Yosemite National Park is a California icon, and there's more than one way to look at it - from the unrounded side, for example.
View ArticleSan Francisco's famed cable cars
The expensive and outdated mode of transportation remains the heart of San Francisco.
View ArticlePortland's quirky comeback kid
The revitalized theater, with its electrified-ersatz-Islamic-hallucination exterior, is a focal point of the Hawthorne area. With hippies and hipsters, it's all very 'Portlandia.'
View ArticleMonument Valley: A stark beauty deep in Navajo country
Commanding buttes and mesas plus a complicated history mark the spectacular Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park.
View ArticleAt San Diego Zoo, stare down giraffes, breakfast with pandas
The venerable San Diego Zoo invites long and repeated visits. There are, after all, more than 3,700 animals to get to know. Plus, the Australian Outback area was just updated.
View ArticlePostcards From the West: Los Angeles' Union Station
L.A.'s Union Station, the 'last of the great train stations' has been moving people and freight for more than seven decades.
View ArticleOn Kauai's North Shore, Mother Nature paints with green
The north coast of Kauai is a place of spiky green ridges and plunging waterfalls. In low-key Hanalei, nature beckons this visitor despite Princeville resort traffic and a patch of iffy weather.
View ArticleCalifornia's redwoods: In the land of the giants
It was the first full day of my redwood country road trip, about 180 miles north of San Francisco. John Stephenson was showing me his drive-through tree, a 315-foot beauty that's the pride of Leggett....
View ArticleIn San Antonio, remembering (and rethinking) the Alamo
The most famous building in Texas is smaller than you expect, and it's about as pretty as your average California mission. In fact, it was once a mission, though these days it stands across the street...
View ArticleThe Grand Canyon, just as the Kolb brothers pictured it
They were just a couple of greenhorns from Pittsburgh, but the Kolb brothers knew the greatest photo op in the West when they saw it. It was 1902. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway had just...
View ArticleYellowstone's steaming, splashing, roaring spectacle is best seen up close
Most days, in most ways, this park's Upper Geyser Basin is a geothermal outlaw biker beach party - belching and splashing at all hours, with a sulfuric whiff of menace riding the breeze. But in one...
View ArticleThe West of old, new and myth meet in Durango, Colo.
Without railroads and mines, what would the American West be? Less populous, less prosperous, less polluted. And the town of Durango might not be anything at all. Durango, sporty and historic, stands...
View ArticleIn Katmai National Park, Alaska, up close with bears pursuing salmon
In the Alaska of my mind, it is always summer. A bear stands hip-deep in glacial runoff, swatting salmon and swallowing them whole. Eagles wheel overhead. Moose meander in the bush. The theme from...
View ArticlePike Place Market is a magical lure on Seattle's bustling waterfront
Somehow, on four visits to Pike Place Market over three decades, I failed to learn where the brothel was. Nor did I hear how the first Starbucks did business for years in this neighborhood before...
View ArticleIn Death Valley, a Jeep, back roads and a whole new perspective
It took me several trips here to realize this, but if you know where to look and time it right, Death Valley is one giggle after another. Sure, it's vast, wind-raked, sun-baked and empty-seeming. Yes,...
View ArticleAt Crater Lake, Ore., sky and water become one, bathed in blue
The California border was just behind us, and Times photographer Mark Boster and I were roaring up a rain-soaked Oregon highway past fog-shrouded forests and green-stubbled boulders. About an hour...
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