Alabama Hills Photo by jalphoto

Watch the Alabama Hills Movie History video.

Photo by Mike Disharoon

– Doug McConnell

Our good friend, Jodie Chase, has brought to our attention an extraordinary new environmental art program headed for the San Francisco Bay Area. Get ready to see some amazing and massive works of art along our roadways, and if you’re between 12 and 18 years-of-age with a statement to make and a flair for the visual, start drawing. You can get involved right now.

ReVisions/SF is a project of the Eco-LogicalART Gallery in Los Angeles. Nine original works of art painted on recycled billboard vinyl will be displayed on billboards, 14′x48′ in size, where millions of us will see them as we motor by. Smaller works on vinyl will be on display at the Thoreau Center for Sustainability in the Presidio. It will all begin on Earth Day, April 22nd, and continue through May 21.

There’s also an open call to middle and high school students to send their works right away to “Gimme Shelter,” an Eco Art event. Submissions are sought for the heme: “The World as I See It/World as I Hope It Would Be.”

According to a press release Jodie passed along to us: “The project begins with an initial 11X17 inch vertical submission created in pencil, pastel, markers or paint, on paper or illustration board.” Please send or deliver your work along with all your contact information (name, address, email and phone number) to:

Thoreau Center (The Presidio)
Building 1014 (Lincoln Blvd and Torney Ave)
San Francisco, CA 94129
Attn: Bruce DeMartini
Gimme Shelter Art!

The public is invited to the opening of the gallery show at the Thoreau Center on April 22, 2008 from 5:00 to 8:00 PM.

Should be fun….and the results will be fascinating. But get moving. All submissions are due no later than this Friday at 5PM. Good luck, and I look forward to seeing the submissions and the perfect use of billboards to encourage us to pass a beautiful and sustainable world to coming generations.

– Doug McConnell

Carl wrote the tease on the home page to my Big Sur Road Trip mobile post mentioning Jack Uhalde’s photography. Producing television and video stories is, at best, a team sport. Carl and I have long had the benefit of working with extraordinarily talented photographers, writers and editors who help us produce our best work. We have always put a premium on photography….and Jack Uhalde was and is one of the best videographers in the business.

Jack worked as Director of Photography with us for 10 years, and much of his work graces OpenRoad.TV. Jack and I traveled to the ends of the earth together finding and telling stories of all kinds. He was a terrific travel companion, and he always came home with spectacular sounds and pictures that made every story. Almost all of the Big Sur video you see was shot by Jack. One of these days I’ll pass along tales of some of our adventures along the OpenRoad of the West and the world. In the meantime, I hope you sit back and enjoy the work of a very talented guy…..and get inspired to hit the road yourself and pass along your work for all of us here to enjoy.

Photo by Carl Bidleman

Watch our video about taking a classic California road trip on Highway 1 along Big Sur’s Glorious Coast.

Photo by Steve Rish

– Doug McConnell

Many visitors come to San Francisco to see its famous landmarks and tourist attractions, such as the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, the cable cars and Fisherman’s Wharf, and that makes good sense. Add to them the City’s revitalized waterfront, the Presidio, Land’s End, Ocean Beach, Golden Gate Park, the Market Street Railway and the be-domed beauty of City Hall for starters, and there’s a lot to see in San Francisco.

But what often gets overlooked by those who visit or even live here is what I think most distinguishes San Francisco, its diverse neighborhoods. Check out the Haight, the Castro, and Chinatown, for example, and then go to one of our newest stories and spend some time in the cultural crossroads of the Mission District. San Francisco is a fascinating mosaic of neighborhoods perched on hills and nestled in valleys, each with its own history and character. San Francisco is really many cities in one, and deserves and warrants all the visits you can make.

Photo by Carl Bidleman

– Doug McConnell
Spring is bursting all around northern and central California. It hasn’t been the wettest of winters, but we’ve had more rain near the coast and more snow in Sierra Nevada this year than last, and that’s good. We still have time for more, and I hope we get it.

As the days grow gradually longer and warmer, the snow will begin to melt in the Sierra high country, and gravity will start pulling the water down through the canyons and off the sheer granite cliffs of Yosemite National Park. The fabled waterfalls of Yosemite will surge to life, and the most famous of them all is now more accessible to all of us than ever before.

Check out our tour of the new Yosemite Falls Trail. You’ll be inspired to go and, I hope, support the work of the Yosemite Fund. By the way, once you’ve looked at the story about the trail, take a moment to see some of our other pieces about Yosemite and the people who know it best, for example: Yosemite’s Half Dome Trek, Yosemite’s Ahwahnee Hotel, Yosemite’s Ansel Adams. Then hit the road and soak up a little flying aquatic majesty.

Photo by Robert Holmes / Cal Tours



Watch our Sonora, California in the Movies video.

Photo by robh

– Doug McConnell

Here at OpenRoad.TV we focus on the big, broad and beautiful West, from Alaska to Mexico and the Rockies to Hawaii. It’s a pretty nice territory to live in and explore, and we hope you find ideas here that will help guide your travels.

But our fundamental concept is that, no matter where you travel on earth and no matter where you happen to be, if you slow down and look and listen carefully, you’ll find terrific stories, adventures, characters and experiences that will enrich your life. After wandering around all my life in search of curiousities and tales to tell, I’m convinced there are fascinating treasures to discover everywhere….and they’re usually hiding in plain sight right under our noses. I love to go to the far corners of the earth on grand journeys, but I also like to poke around my own neighborhood to be surprised and learn something new.

So it was when we shot a story recently on San Francisco’s famous Fisherman’s Wharf. The Wharf is one of the San Francisco’s most popular tourist destinations, so much so that locals tend to stay away in droves. It’s sometimes said that if you live in the Bay Area and want to have an illicit affair, just go to the Wharf and you and your partner will never run into anybody you know. Now I’m not endorsing that particularly, nor is that particularly true, but the fact is that many of us who live around here and many of you who come to visit, too, think of Fisherman’s Wharf as a to-be-avoided tourist trap. We think we know the neighborhood, but really don’t; if you watch the story, you’ll find that the historic legacy of the Wharf is being kept alive in a variety of ways by some delightful and hard-working people. You’ll discover, as I did, that if you walk a few feet off the beaten path you’ll leave the crowds behind and begin to find the heart and soul of the place. I loved my day seeing my own backyard in an unexpected and brand new way.