Take a walking tour of San Francisco's best and famous chocolate eateries. Either do your own self-tour or take one by www.gourmetwalks.com. These tours are at 10:30am Wednesdays and Fridays and 2pm Saturdays.
For your own walking tour:
More than 2,000 years ago, a seed the size of an oatmeal flake began to sprout in the mountains now known as the Sierra Nevada. The seedling grew through a forest canopy and eventually reached 275 feet, the height of a 27-story building, with a trunk wider than a three-lane highway. Today, the giant sequoia called the General Sherman reigns as the world’s largest tree.
HOW LARGE?
Though not the tallest or widest tree, the General ranks as largest based on the volume of its trunk—52,508 cubic feet, enough wood to make a two-foot-wide path of inch-thick planks 60 miles long.
AN OFFICER’S RESPECTS
In 1879, naturalist and Civil War veteran James Wolverton named the tree after his former commander, William Tecumseh ("War is hell") Sherman.
Like many Californians, I skipped past Hearst Castle for years. I'd seen Orson Welles's 1941 classic, Citizen Kane, and figured I knew all I needed to about Citizen Hearst and his San Simeon monument to self-indulgence. Fifty-six bedrooms, 61 baths, 41 fireplaces—the scale alone is embarrassing. It apparently took a village to house this man, who had the wealth of a Medici and the ego of Nero.
The sea otters are so close you can hear one munching a crab, making a cracking sound like a kid with a bag of sunflower seeds. It's a cool, gray morning near the tiny town of Moss Landing, Calif., and I'm sitting in a flatbottom boat with 15 other passengers, gliding across the waters of Elkhorn Slough. The otters—27 of them in this particular group—seem wholly unconcerned with us. A mother otter nurses her pup; another rolls in the water. Some are brown, some streaked with gold.
Dip into honey making - visit the Lavender Bee Farm in Petaluma, California where happy bees forage on two acres of lavender. Visit with Mel the Camel and Lamar the Llama. For more info, go to www.lavendarbeefarm.com.
You bet it's kitschy. And what's wrong with that? The faux-Danish village of Solvang, California located 35 miles northwest of Santa Barbara, is a blast to visit, especially at Christmas. The town makes merry with pagents, parades, caroling, and the construction of an 8-by-11-foot gingerbread house - using 250 pounds of cookie dough, which is displayed at the Royal Scandinavian Inn. Don't leave town without breakfasting on aebleskiver, the spherical Nordic answer to pancakes.
Kids are always fascinated when money is coined and printed. The US Mint offers tours in Washington, D.C. and Denver, CO. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing prints paper money and provides tours in Washington, D.C., and Fort Worth, Texas.
Ride the sand dunes at Pismo Beach, California in an ATV or dune buggy. Get a thrill jumping the dunes and then jump in the ocean for a refreshing cool down.
Grab a sled, squirt the rails with furniture polish, and go for a spin in Colorado's Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. Schedule your trip for June, and you can catch the annual Castles, Kites, and Concerts event, featuring—you guessed it—sand castles, flying kites, and music concerts. See www.nps.gov/grsa.
