An estimated 2.4 million pounds of plastic enter the world’s oceans every hour, so Seattle-based artist Chris Jordan took 2.4 million pieces of plastic from toothbrushes, combs and all the other junk that fills modern life and created a recreation of the famous Japanese painting “The Great Wave Off Kanagawa” by Hokusai. We’re drowning in…
Category: California
Ode to the Swimming Pool
For years, I’ve based my hotel choices not on price or location but on the quality of the pool. Indoor, outdoor, it didn’t matter, but there had to be a well-maintained pool, one that the hotel was proud to showcase, not something hidden on the sixth floor at the end of some abandoned hallway. I…
24 Hours in San Francisco – Beanies & Bikinis (Pack Both!)
Mark Twain once said “the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” The typical summer day in San Francisco rarely tops 70 degrees. The day we were there the thermometer sputtered to reach 60. We drove up from Los Angeles and added layers with each passing hour during the ride. When…
Feeling Small in Big Sur
Big Sur is unforgiving. I could wax poetic and quote those before me about its striking coastline hand carved by the Creator, how it’s the most amazing place where land meets sea, how it’s the Earth as God intended. And all of those things are true. But after a few days on the Creator’s coastline…
Spontaneity Flop
Spontaneity doesn’t always work out. I like to keep a vacation itinerary loose; mix it up with old haunts and new ones and not necessarily know what I’m going to be doing that day. This year, we visited The Huntington Library and I decided we would just show up, wander the gardens and galleries of…