Walking along the shoulder of a busy two-lane thoroughfare called Green Valley Road to Pinto Lake on a sunny morning in Watsonville, CA, bringing up the back of a line of 3rd grade students from Amesti Elementary School, I am reflecting on how aptly the road is named when Juan—everybody calls him ‘Jay’— says, ‘There’s […]
Rialto Unified School District (USD), located in the Inland Empire, focused on a challenge several years ago: how to provide students with learning experiences which will prepare and encourage them to pursue pathways in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers. Ms. Juanita Chan, formerly a 4th grade teacher, Teacher on Special Assignment (TOSA), District […]
The Wigwam Motel is a horseshoe-shaped collection of nineteen stucco structures fashioned after teepees located on a stretch of historic Route 66 in Rialto, California. The final installment of designer Frank Redford’s Wigwam Villages (there were seven, three remain), built in 1949, was purchased and lovingly restored in 2003 by a family who emigrated from […]
[This is part 2 of a two-part post] In October 2017, Plumas Unified School District (USD) invited the entire Plumas County community to the historic Quincy schoolhouse in celebration of 30 consecutive years of outdoor education for K–12 students. How did a two-day, one-night overnight camp for a handful of 6th grade students (at what was […]
[This is part 1 of a two-part post] It’s a dark November night as I drive through the western Sierras toward Quincy, CA (elevation 3,423 ft.). The narrow road twists through pine and rock as the elevation rises, edged by water spanned by erector-set bridges and intermittent power stations. Because it is so dark, because […]
It’s a sunny May morning in the Imperial Valley; by 8:00am it’s already 90° and climbing. I arrived the afternoon before and decided to avoid the interstate by taking the 78, a winding two-lane road that at times looks like what I imagine the surface of the moon would. Extending south from the Salton Sea […]