An afternoon at Big Trees Dear Reader, I am happy to report that Calaveras Big Trees State Park sits a scant three miles past the town of Arnold, California and is home to two groves of Giant Sequoias. I am delighted to tell you that ample, affordable, highway-close parking makes them the most accessible in the Sierras. I am elated to let you know that being a state park translates to remarkably…
Want to avoid the demise of brick-and-mortar retail? Go support a business today. Dear Readers, It was with a sense of despair that I headed out to see The Last Bookstore with my own eyes. While I hoped that the name was just a tongue-in-cheek take on the state of brick and mortar retail establishments, it would not surprise me at all if the actual last bookstore in the world closes its doors in…
Welcome to EddieWorld, your familiy’s new favorite pit stop. Dear Reader, For this latest installment of Animated Meat, I feel the need to provide a warning to travelers whose wanderings may take them through the heart of the Mojave Desert. This entry will not serve as a reminder to prepare for the obvious threats one may encounter in a harsh and unforgiving environment. Readers of this fair…
I actually took this picture on the way out, but play along with me. Are you ready for a painfully obvious statement? Summer vacations with one’s family are for putting troubles away and having an adventure while the weather is agreeable. However, nothing about 2021 was normal. With just six days into the new year, the Covid-weary world witnessed an insurrection at the United States Capitol…
Dear Reader, I had every intention of writing a glowing review of Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, California. It’s a place so unique that I actually decided to cover it again after gushing over it once before on Animated Meat . So, if you’d like to read an uplifting piece about one of California’s coastal wonders, I’d recommend looking at the one on California Through My Lens . Just skip over my words…
Jacque, George, and a railbike headed for adventure . . . To call Fort Bragg a quaint coastal town would be an understatement. Tucked in the upper left hand of California, the onetime hub of the lumber industry sits at the edge of the Pacific Ocean and is surrounded by redwoods. It’s also home to the Skunk Train , a heritage railway that up to a few years ago was able to take weekend visitors on a…
Mai, Jacque, Matilda, and Raggedy Ann just outside the new entrance to the theater. Dear reader, I must make a confession to you before we proceed any further. When I arrived at the Ryman Auditorium with my family in tow, my intent was not to spend huge swaths of my afternoon considering ways I can help my kids actualize their dreams. Nor was my plan to reflect on the horror a middle aged person…
If there was ever a moment in the last hundred years to advise someone not to open a business, it would have to have been 1932. The Great Depression was only just beginning to grind. Bank runs and double digit unemployment were the norm. The Dust Bowl wiped out family farms and displaced people throughout the country. However, right in the thick of the chaos, Garnet and Frieda Carter decided to…
While I do not have the resources required to back a major longitudinal study into children’s entertainment, I am equipped with a pretty good imagination. In my imagination, I would commit a significant amount of money as well as the energy of the world’d finest finest scientists and statisticians. In a carefully crafted study, I would have them look into entertainment aimed at kids. Surfacing…
I’m not entirely certain which of the nine muses is in charge of travel writing, but in my time on the gig, I have become painfully aware of her demands. For the most part, she is benevolent and offers up tiny specks of inspiration that require hours and hours of work to flesh out into something worth distributing for free on the internet. While she is generous, she is also jealous when a creator…
According to a recent report by CNN, the golden era of manufacturing jobs in America occurred during the 1970’s. 1979 was the high water mark when almost a quarter of working Americans picked up a paycheck in exchange for spending their waking hours in a factory. Despite all our Commander in Chief’s bluster, only about eight percent are employed in manufacturing. How times have changed. Where have…
Just a few winters past, the pathway to fame was paved with years of hard work and dedication to a dream. While fame was elusive, those who managed to achieve it did so by acquiring a skill that set them apart from the crowd. It used to be that famous people could actually do something worth commanding attention. However, as we close out the beginning of the twenty-first century, the American…
Los Angeles is a city that holds claim too far too many “used tos”. It used to have the finest public transportation system in the world. It used to be an agricultural center responsible for the nation’s fresh produce. It used to be a place where middle and working class people could afford a home. In service to that population, it used to be a place where funiculars like Angel’s Flight dotted the…
Perched on a clearing high above the Newport Beach Civic Center reside a collection of white magician’s rabbits. Carved from stone and arranged in a circle, locals have taken to calling the attraction Bunnyhenge. While a rabbit hardly seems to be the kind of creature capable of striking fear in a person’s heart, these bunnies have a history of striking discord among those to have had the courage…
The good people of the West Coast pride ourselves on social progress. We’ve figured out a few things a half-tick faster than the rest of the country and have allowed ourselves to believe that we’re somehow more elevated than our neighbors to the east. As I see it, the problem is that we have put ourselves in a righteous position that lacks the exact kind of serious self-examination we wish the…
Taking kids to a cemetery for an outing may seem like an odd parenting choice. As an odd parent, I’d like to take a few moments and explain my logic in doing so. As someone who hangs my hat in Southern California, I am well aware that we have a wealth of kid-friendly options. I could have dropped a few hundred dollars on a trip to Disneyland. We could have gone bouncing around in an indoor…
The California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento has something to appeal to all of its visitors. Any train enthusiast will be dazzled by the collection. Opened in 1981, they have amassed nineteen steam locomotives that are kept in immaculate condition. With polished brass and stained wood, they look as sharp as the day they were first wheel out of the factory. For kids, it offers lots of…
One day, a historian will write a book about our slice of the twenty-first century and will identify right now as the moment when people lost any sense of a nuanced approach to their dealings. It does not matter if it’s an opinion about the president, or a Yelp review of Moons Over My Hammy, the best we can manage is to say that things are either entirely great, or wretchedly terrible. The…
Portrait of the artist forgetting about landscape mode. Despite the blue skies and the warm weather, a visit to the USS Iowa is hardly a care-free trip to the seaside. Billed as a floating museum, the decommissioned battleship serves as a sobering reminder of the real cost of being a free country. At first glance, the ship seems massive as it rises high above its dock and lords over the harbor.…
Cell phones have made me forgot that some things look better when taken in landscape mode. Los Angeles is a deeply conflicted city. Bukowski recognized it. So did Wambaugh. X’s Los Angeles is hardly a love song to the city of Angels. Even Miley Cyrus took time to reflect on how vapid and unfriendly a place it can be. It’s a place that manufactures images of perfection and sells them to the world,…