– Doug

This morning in Marin County, California, the low clouds and fog are dense. It’s gray and cool. I find myself bundling up and thinking about more northerly and even cooler places where I’ve lived and traveled over the years.

Right away my thoughts drift up the Inside Passage to Southeast Alaska where I lived for a few years in the early 1970’s before moving to Anchorage where I stayed until 1982. I get back up quite a bit to do television stories, visit old friends and favorite haunts and discover new places. I’m also on the board of the Alaska Conservation Foundation (ACF) which, among other things, raises and distributes money to support critical conservation groups and programs in the state. I’ve had a long love affair with Alaska and I go, in real life and in my imagination, whenever I can.

Photo: Inside Passage by the17pointscale

We have a few of our Alaska stories here on OpenRoad.TV: Alaska’s River of Bears; Sitka, Alaska’s Russian and Tlingit Heritage, Juneau, Alaska’s Mendenhall Glacier with more to come. Many of you have traveled there, some numerous times. Some of you even live in Alaska today. Please send us your thoughts, tips and stories about your journeys in the Great Land. We’d love to know about them.

Many many people who go to Southeast Alaska see it from the decks of cruise ships and in short stops in little towns that can feel overrun by tourists. I’ve only gone to Southeast (more…)

– Doug McConnell

Angel Island Monument by Stacy Geiken

It turns out that I couldn’t join Carl Bidleman and Jim Wirth on the trip to Woodside yesterday. But they did go and had a terrific time with Jamis MacNiven at Buck’s Restaurant, and we’ll have a video in this spot soon that depicts their journey.

They also interviewed on video environmental blogger Rhett Butler about his good work and his love of Big Basin State Park near Santa Cruz, California. Rhett’s video will be posted here soon as well. About Big Basin, by the way, it was California’s first state park established in 1902 in large part to protect its threatened old growth redwood forest. In the 105 years since, California’s state park system has grown dramatically. We’ve included stories about quite a few of the state parks already on OpenRoad.TV with more to come. Here’s a sampling of what we have: Hearst Castle and Ranch and Big Sur’s Molera State Park.

I’ve had the chance (more…)

– Doug McConnell

Today Carl Bidleman, Jim Wirth and I are cruising down from Marin County to the beautiful Peninsula town of Woodside. Woodside was long a warm-weather escape for San Francisco’s early barons of industry and a lovely leafy horse town. These days, while the horses and old-money barons remain, Woodside has become home to more new billionaires per capita than probably any other town in the world. Silicon Valley and the venture capitalists of Sand Hill Road are right nearby. One of the prime gathering spots for high-tech entrepreneurs (as well as the rest of us) is Buck’s Restaurant in Woodside owned, operated, crafted and conducted by its Impresario-in-Chief, Jamis MacNiven and his wonderful wife, Margaret.

Jamis MacNiven, Roy & Trigger

Visit Buck’s online and in person. You’ll enjoy the whimsy and the creativity, not to mention the food and the company. We’ll include some pictures tomorrow after we lunch with Jamis and do a little business. He’s one of our OpenRoad.TV advisors. But knowing Jamis and us, we’ll do very little business and a lot of story telling and guffawing.

Over the years, we’ve done quite a few stories in and around Woodside, Palo Alto and Silicon Valley. One of our stories, (more…)

– Doug McConnell

This was a wonderful morning for some of us OpenRoaders. Carl Bidleman, Jim Wirth and I did our first shoot along Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco for a new blog series we’re calling “Life Outside the Box.” Being new guys to the web world, we find ourselves spending long hours in front of the computer screen filling the box with content. I still get to be out wandering around quite a bit, but Carl especially ends up feeling as if he’s living inside the box and not getting outside as much as he wants. He thought others in the blogosphere might be feeling the same way, and wondered what they do and where they go when they can escape for a while back into first life.

Click to play

Havin’ a laugh with David Pescovitz.

So we asked David Pescovitz, one of the terrific talkers of BoingBoing, if he would show us one of his favorite haunts in the Bay Area. David said he was game and we met at 10:00 a.m. at the fabled and fantastic treasure trove of old games and amusements, Musee Mechanique. We paid homage to Laughing Sal, watched a few arcade executions, challenged each other to a game of pong (the years have taken a toll on my reflexes,) and encouraged the Musee’s proprietor and old friend, Dan Zelinsky, to pound out a little Scott Joplin on the old piano in his workshop, right next to the power lathe and shelves filled with arcane parts of all kinds. David even snapped a photo of Dan’s metal pocket protector. Check it out on BoingBoing, visit the Musee Mechanique online and in person, and stay tuned for our video version of this story. Carl’s already back in the box editing the piece.

From the Musee we wandered down the block to the Aquarium of the Bay next to Pier 39. I wanted to show David the skate, sharks, sturgeon, and other critters. (more…)

– Doug McConnell

Photo: Pigeon Point Lightstation by Yen-Wen Lu

I watched a piece of CNN’s “Planet in Peril” series last night. I’ve spent quite a bit of time during the past few decades working on programs to help us understand and address the immense ecological crises of our time. In most ways, I haven’t seen much success. While the biosphere doesn’t get any bigger, our appetites for its limited resources seem to grow exponentially. The planet heats, habitats are destroyed and species disappear at rates unprecedented in the past sixty-five million years. Overall, it’s a pretty gloomy picture.

However, there are many signs of hope scattered across the face of the earth. Right here in northern California, I get encouraged every day by the commitments of concerned people and the consequences of their hard work. The Bay Area in particular has long been a leader in environmental action and land conservation. If you visit here these days, (more…)

– Carl Bidleman

Keep watching this space for the soon-to-be-launched Life Outside the Box video series where we’ll introduce you to citizens of the blogging world and find out where they like to go and what they like to do when they manage to get offline.

– Doug McConnell

Today is absolutely beautiful in Sausalito. Warm air, golden light, and silky blue water in Richardson Bay. Kind of reminding me of Hawaii…..and so my imagination is traveling there even if I can’t….at least right now. My first trip to Hawaii was in the late spring of 1975. I was living in Alaska in those days. I love the far north, but after a long winter there I’ll never forget the soft feeling of the air and the sweet smell of flowers I felt when I got off the plane in Honolulu. Within an hour or two I was in the water…and I was hooked. I fell in love with the islands and have returned more times than I can easily count. It was especially easy and cheap to get there in those days. Western Airlines, no longer with us, had a special “triangle fare” for people flying between round-trip from between Anchorage and San Francisco. After flying from Anchorage to see my family in northern California, I could go home via Honolulu for only an extra $25. I couldn’t pass that up……..even if I could only go jump in the water for a few hours.

Photo: Hawaii at Night by Chris Bence

On one of my early trips, I went with a few girls I met on the beach…..those were the days…..to carouse and catch Don Ho at the height of his celebrity in Waikiki. (more…)

— Doug McConnell

If you don’t mind being incarcerated for a little while, take a look at our story on the movie history of Alcatraz. Alcatraz gets about a million visitors a year…..and people go there for all kinds of reasons. It’s one of my favorite places in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has an absolutely and literally unique ecosystem, a layered and complex history (the Federal Penitentiary years were only a part of the story) and views to die for (few actually did.) I’m ready to talk about The Rock any time you are. And go to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and the Golden Gate National Park Conservancy for more information.

Acatraz Sunrise by Jason Weisberger

— Jim Wirth

One of our OpenRoad.TV contributors, Rick Deutsch, lives the Carpe Diem attitude. Rick has hiked Yosemite’s Half Dome over 20 times, and has written a great book on the subject called One Best Hike: Yosemite’s Half Dome. Rick also provides valuable up-to-date information about Yosemite at his website and blog. If you have any plans on visiting Yosemite Valley and scaling this iconic rock any time soon, I encourage you to check out what Rick has to say.

— Carl Bidleman

Like Doug, I’ve fallen in love with Yosemite too, which puts me in an exclusive club with only 3-4 million other people who visit every year. I recently discovered and have become very fond of Loyd Schutte’s Yosemite Blog.

I look forward to his daily posts that bring insider’s info and spectacular photos (with photographer credits which is very cool) of the Yosemite region to my inbox. For me it’s a mental journey to Yosemite that I can take when I most need it during the day. In fact, it’s inspired me to create a similar series for this blog that I’ll call 10 Second Vacation featuring stunning or intriguing photos from around the west. Thanks Loyd. And take care of Yosemite for the rest of us till we can get back there again.