Author: AnnaLee Polk

Trees of Mystery in California offers wide, wandering trails through towering redwoods that are perfect for families. Although we normally stick to National Parks and scenic drives, we occasionally take a chance on a “tourist trap.”  In this case, curiosity got the best of us, and we cautiously paid the entrance fee into Trees of…

Avenue of the Giants You must put Avenue of the Giants in Northern California’s Humboldt Redwoods State Park on your bucket list. This wonderfully scenic 31-mile highway winds through towering groves of ancient redwoods that rise like cathedral pillars, their massive trunks stretching skyward and their leafy crowns disappearing into a soft, misty canopy above.…

Nestled in the Eel River Valley, surrounded by the lush, redwood-covered ridges of Northern California’s Coast Ranges, is Stafford RV Park. You will find it located just off Hwy 101 in Scotia, California. It is definitely one of those rare finds. Excellent Location for Touring Stafford RV Park, also known as Avenue of the Giants…

Pacific Dunes Ranch RV Resort in Oceano, California was a place we looked forward to visiting—but it didn’t turn out the way we expected. Great Anticipation After doing some research, we found what seemed like the perfect stop—Pacific Dunes Ranch RV Resort in Oceania, California. Everything we saw said the same thing: you could ride…

Although our travels are centered around visiting national parks, there are a few other “must-do” stops that occasionally cause us to take a short detour. One of those stops was the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, located just a short drive from Channel Islands National Park. Cowboy Exhibit at Ronald Reagan Presidential Library At the time…

Our visit to Santa Cruz Island — the largest of the Channel Islands — was filled with ocean views, rugged beauty, and just enough adventure to remind us that nature is always in charge. Getting there, however… might best be told with a familiar tune. If you know the Gilligan’s Island theme song, you may…

Joshua Tree National Park isn’t just one landscape, as I once imagined — it is many. Cactus Everywhere Around every bend, the arid region seemed to change its personality. One moment we were in a desert basin surrounded by fluffy-looking cacti, each one glowing softly in the sunlight. The stillness of the desert felt lonely…

Perhaps Death Valley National Park became famous through television. Remember those old westerns set in the desert? Cowboys lost their horses, ran out of water, and dragged themselves through a hot and dangerous landscape. Sand dunes, cactus, salt flats, rocks, and rattlesnakes threatened their survival. That was the picture I carried in my mind of…

Visiting Kings Canyon National Park gave us another day among the giant sequoia trees. As we wandered through Kings Canyon National Park, these towering giants reminded me of a song I sang many times as a child in church — Deep and Wide. It begins, “deep and wide, deep and wide, there’s a fountain flowing…