Tag: California

I have explored caves and hiked trails all over California. I lived in California for 15 years, with a 5-year stint in Boston before moving back again in 2019.

Pears simmering in wine sauce

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These food photos are posted in response the photo challenge Sweet.

I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but cooked fruit is always delicious. These bubbling pears were from a friend’s Thanksgiving meal. We spent the weekend at in Gualala, California. Gualala is north of San Francisco along the Pacific coast a little south of Mendocino. I spent Thanksgiving there with my old friend Andrew a few years ago.

You know what’s really sweet? Old friends. I’ve known Andrew since 1988. Sweet.

From the same Thanksgiving we ate this pear upside-down cake:

Big Sur Horizon

~ Kristen Ankiewicz ~ 1 Comment

This photo of Big Sur posted in response to today’s daily prompt, Horizon. I took a series of photos left-to-right and then pasted them together in Photoshop to make a panorama. I was fairly outdoorsy when I lived in California and always had my camera (Nikon D200) with me. Nowadays my biggest hobby is writing. Still, my trusty camera and lenses sit on the shelf, waiting for the day when I feel like taking a picture again. Odds are higher that I’ll take photos with my iPhone, and not lug around the heavy Nikon.

Big Sur Panorama

And another Big Sur coastline horizon:

Big Sur Beach

Bixby Creek Bridge, Big Sur

~ Kristen Ankiewicz ~ 2 Comments

Address: Bixby Creek Bridge, CA-1, Monterey, CA 93940

According to Wikipedia, Bixby Creek Bridge is one of the most photographed bridges in California due to its aesthetic design. Bixby Creek Bridge, also known as Bixby Canyon Bridge, on the Big Sur coast of California, is a reinforced concrete open-spandrel arch bridge. The bridge is 120 miles south of San Francisco and 13 miles south of Carmel in Monterey County along State Route 1.


Crystal Cave, Sequoia National Park

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cave pearls in Crystal Cave, Sequoia National Park

Check out those pearls! You can see them for yourself. One of the things you need to add to your travel bucket list is Crystal Cave in Sequoia National Park, California.  It’s an easy cave with a tour that runs in the spring, summer and fall. The park itself is gorgeous too. I spent many camping trips up there! Here is me posing in my spiffy red cave suit in front of a waterfall:

Sequoia National Park waterfall

I spent many years caving and camping in this part of the country. California is rich with caves and forest.

I hiked Henry Coe State Park

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And I took a ton of photos. You can see them here.

I acquired a TICK on my hip sometime during the trip (probably when I squatted to pee off the trail.) I found it hours later and yanked it out, and it tried to craw away. ICK!

There were lovely amounts of wildlife to see and hear. I heard tons of frogs croaking, I heard a very loud turkey gobblin’, I saw a turkey (not sure if it was the same one), Peter saw 5 turkeys himself, we saw deer, and we saw turkey vultures swooping overhead.

The hike was 4.5 miles round trip for me — 2.9 miles to Frog Lake (along Frog Flat Trail), then 1 mile back along Hobbs road (very steep!), then .6 miles back along Monument trail.


Henry Coe State Park