Tag: geography of california

The chamber of commerce brochure says our summer California hills are golden. I don’t buy it. Except for a few moments after sunrise and before sunset, the hills look brown to me. Each year, the warming weather dries the seasonal streams and bakes the life force out winter’s lush grasses. When it does, I feel a bit of my life force ebb as well.

HONORS: Kahikoleiulu Dudoit: Navy Seaman Recruit Kahikoleiulu Dudoit, a 2011 graduate of Central High School, recently completed U.S. Navy basic training at Recruit Training Command, Great Lakes, Ill.

This week, police arrested several people for narcotics related crimes, petty theft, and are on the lookout for a San Jose homicide suspect. Here are a few events worth noting:

South County wineries are hosting the second Passport Weekend of the year Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The Comcast call center in Morgan Hill announced they closings its doors Nov. 30, leaving hundreds jobless. 

Our California hills prefer to roll along, rising and falling in gentle gradients. There are few trails etched high into steep slopes where a misstep is costly, or where one dreams of tilting forward and taking flight. Not many, but there are a few. 

When I talk to people on the Monterey Peninsula who walk the preserves and parks in the area, they often mention Jack’s Peak County Park. My sister and her canine companion, Harry, recently came up from Santa Barbara for a visit, and we decided to rendezvous in Monterey for a short hike. Since Monterey’s county parks are dog-friendly, it seemed like a perfect time to go to Jack’s Peak and see what everybody has been talking about.

I grew up just across the Golden Gate Bridge in Mill Valley. As I get grayer, the personal connections to my old home slip away, but the emotional link never dims.

The Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail is a classic Bay Area backpack trip. Any journey that goes from hilltops cloaked with Douglas fir through forests of old growth redwoods, past an 80-foot waterfall to the Pacific Ocean has a lot to recommend it.

In an effort memorialize 14-year-old drive-by shooting victim Tara Romero and to encourage Morgan Hill's youth to express themselves freely and actively, a group of local parents and teens will host an art show and fundraiser Jan. 13.