San Luis Obispo Train

Huell is greeted by dogs of many breeds and their owners at the Beverly Hills Dog Show. Enjoy big dogs, little dogs, shaggy dogs, hairless dogs and some with very unusual coiffures.

Huell visits the warm coastal community of Seal Beach and meets the nice folks who like to stroll the boardwalk.

Leave it to our own Huell Howser to think he could go kayaking in Death Valley! But it turns out that's exactly what he does as he travels to normally parched Death Valley National Park to kayak on the huge salt lake created by this year's heavy rains. Ancient Lake Manly at Badwater only reappears about every 100 years, so he figured he better go for it.

In addition to the lake, Huell also captures the bounty of endless fields of wildflowers, which covered Death Valley this spring.

Huell spends the day at the headquarters of the Automobile Club of Southern California to get a behind the scenes look at the history of Westways Magazine. It was originally published under the name Touring Topics and its earliest issues focused on touring destinations, advances in automotive technology and efforts to bring modern roads to Southern California. The Westways name was placed on the mast in 1934. Many famous writers and artist have contributed over the last 100 years and Huell gets to see many of the original works.

Located in Desert Hot Springs, Huell Howser visits Cabot’s Old Indian Pueblo Museum. It is an adobe structure built in the early 1900s by the man who discovered the famous mineral springs that give Desert Hot Springs its name. It’s open to the public and houses beautiful paintings, furnishings and Native American pottery.

The Western Bluebird once flew across most of California and beyond, but now they are in dire need of our help. Huell joins up with Bob Franz and the Southern California Bluebird Club, who have been working with many other groups across our state to help bluebirds make a recovery. They suffer as much from habitat loss as they do from the introduction of non-native species. Huell takes a springtime tour of some of the nest-boxes filled with hatchlings as he learns about what has been and can be done to help these blue feathered friends that are part of California’s Green!

Huell revisits Tahquitz Canyon, one of the most beautiful and culturally sensitive areas of the Agua Caliente Reservation in Palm Springs.

 

 

 

 

 

Huell Howser visits the Palm Springs Air Museum located at the Palm Springs International Airport. It’s full of exhibits depicting aviation history through art, photography, movies, videos and of course aircraft.

The San Jacinto Mountains are one of the most impressive natural wonders in our entire state. No other mountains on this continent rise so high so fast, in slightly less than seven horizontal miles, the peak rises from 800 to 10,804 feet above sea level! But these mountains hold another distinction as well.

Visit the spa where Elvis soaked, and then walk through the magnificent Indian Canyons.

The Fountain of Youth Spa is a unique RV Resort in Niland which offers swimming pools, an artesian mineral water hot spa and fresh water hot spas.

Travel with Huell to Gold Country on this very historic road trip. Most people assume “gold country” is all mining tours and gold panning, but Huell finds lots of hidden gold! We visit Moaning Caverns, which are big enough to fit the Statue of Liberty, a historic pipe organ, and a wonderful museum in Angels Camp and a giant gold nugget housed in a winery. There’s also a very important Mark Twain connection, a very historic hotel in Murphy’s and a stop at the Calaveras Jumping Frog Jubilee. We’ll even meet a historic jackass named Mollie.

Huell visits the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the lush backyard of a Woodland Hills resident to learn about hummingbirds in Southern California.

 

Family owned and operated since 1939, this L.A. institution has been serving up some of the best chili cheese hot dogs this side of Coney Island. Huell get the lowdown from Mrs. Pink and a handful of enthusiastic patrons, many whom have been eating at Pink's since their childhood.

In this 1995 flashback episode, Huell visits the oldest restaurant in Hollywood, and talks with longtime employees and patrons about what makes this landmark such a special place. Musso & Frank opened in 1919 and is named after original owners Joseph Musso and Frank Toulet.

Falconry is an ancient sport that has a small, but enthusiastic following in California. Huell learns about the sport, as well as an array of beautiful raptors from a master falconer and studio animal trainer. 

The Central Garden, created by renowned artist Robert Irwin, lies at the heart of the Getty Center. The 134,000-square-foot design features a natural ravine and a tree-lined walkway that leads the visitor through an extraordinary experience of sights, sounds, and scents. Huell gets a special tour from Jim Duggan, the Central Garden's curatorial advisor and the gardeners who keep this living sculpture alive for everyone to enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Huell visits Costa Mesa and sees how far its come from its start as a bean field to a state of the art performance center. 

They're one of the most famous air squadrons in the world -- serving as positive role models and goodwill ambassadors not only for our Navy, but for our country. We're talking about the Blue Angels who, since first formed in 1946, have been demonstrating their flying skills and maneuvers to literally millions of spectators each year. And for over 30 years the Blue Angels have been a part of "California's Gold." Since 1967 the squadron has spent the winter at Naval Air Facility, El Centro, training pilots and new crew members.

It began back in 1941 when it was known as Camp Cooke and served as a U.S. Army training facility for tanks and infantry troops. With the advent of the missile age in the 1950s, the land was transferred to the U.S Air Force for use as a missile training base. The first missile was launched from this facility in 1958 and since then almost 2,000 missiles and space boosters have followed suit.

Huell travels to Trinity County to the small historic town of Weaverville. He visits the beautiful downtown including a Taoist temple built in 1874, which is now the Joss House State Historic Park and the Highland Art Center. He’ll also stop by the Jake Jackson Memorial Museum, the Weaverville Community Forest and even get in some river rafting on the local Trinity River. Of course, there is always a stop at a local eatery, the La Grange Cafe.

 

 

 

 

They've been a part of the California landscape for hundreds of years, helping to build our canals and highways and railroads, hauling our freight, our silver bullion and, of course, playing a major role during the gold rush era. However, many people are under the false impression that they're stubborn, while others tend to overlook them in favor of the more glamorous horse.

They come in all shapes and sizes and many date back to the early part of this century. All have been lovingly restored by their owners and are meticulously maintained. In short, they're some of the most beautiful wooden boats ever made.

Host Huell Howser gets a close look at these boats as he attends the 24th annual Concours d' Elegance dedicated to the preservation and celebration of the wooden vessels that have graced Lake Tahoe since the 1920s. He not only talks with the owners about the rich history of their boats, but joins them for a ride on the historic lake.

Huell heads to Fallbrook in San Diego County to find out about the rich history of avocados in our state. This episode brought you the now-famous line, "now that's an avocado-eating dog."

 

 

 

 

 

Huell gets a taste of history as he visits two families who have turned their crops into empires. He visits both the olive orchards in the San Joaquin Valley and processing plant of the Graber family in Ontario, where for a century workers have prepared Graber Olives in almost the same way. Huell then travels to Orange Country to learn how the world-famous Knott's Berry Farm amusement park grew out of one woman's home cooking.

Huell travels to the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake to see the largest concentration of rock art in the Western Hemisphere. The small canyon houses up to 6,000 images. Although an accurate dating technique is still being sought, certain petroglyphs are thought to be 16,000 years old, while others were made as recently as 1800. This rock art is so important to our cultural heritage and our knowledge of the desert's past that the sites were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1964.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Obama described Occidental as "a wonderful, small liberal arts college. The professors were diverse and inspiring. I ended up making some lifelong friendships there, and those first two years really helped me grow up." Who knew that the next president of the United States had such a formative connection to California?   Join Huell as he gets the Presidential tour of Occidental College in Eagle Rock, where Barack Obama spent his Freshman and Sophomore years.

Surreal, awesome, unbelievable, weird? These are just some of the words that come out of your mouth when you view the Devil's Postpile. Located in the Eastern Sierras, this formation is one of nature's true masterpieces. Towering 60 feet over the San Joaquin River the postpile looks like a huge cathedral pipe organ built entirely of stone. The postpile is actually composed of thousands of columns of fine-grained, black - colored basalt. 100,000 years ago cooling molten rock contracted, creating perfect cracks.

Most of us have seen one of the countless films based on Alcatraz, from "The Birdman" to Clint Eastwood and his "Escape From Alcatraz." Over a million people every year take the ferry through the thick San Francisco fog to walk the cell blocks that housed the likes of Machine Gun Kelley and Al Capone. As usual Huell wasn't satisfied with the regular tour and went in search of the "Hidden Alcatraz". It got it's name from the Spanish word Alcatraces, or Bird Island and didn't see human inhabitants until the U.S. Military took it over in the mid 1800s.

Half Moon Bay rests on the Pacific Coast between forested hills and some of the most beautiful coastlines that California has to offer, and is located approximately 25 miles south of San Francisco. Join Huell as he visits this charming community.

Huell tours the gardens of the world-famous Hearst Castle.

 

 

 

 

 

Huell travels to the Mojave Desert's El Mirage Dry Lake, one of the world's best spots for land sailors. Land Sailing is a sport in which a wheeled vehicle powered by wind moves across land with the aide of a sail. Huell explores the history of this unique tradition and even gets the opportunity to ride a sofa through the desert!

Join Huell as he visits Paradise Creek Educational Park. Paradise Creek is an urban salt marsh creek that connects San Diego Bay to the watershed of the surrounding mountains and city landscape. It's home to crabs, egrets, snails and various wetland plants, but in the recent past, was a trash-filled, neglected urban stream threatened by development. Due to the hard work of a local couple and nearby school children, an education park was created in 1999 on a half-mile stretch of Paradise Creek which has been returned to its natural state.

Anacapa Island, one of California's Channel Islands, is located 14 miles off the coast from Ventura. From the ocean, Huell finds that ocean waves have eroded the perimeter of the island, creating steep sea cliffs towering hundreds of feet in height and exposing the volcanic origins of air pockets, lava tubes, and sea caves. Once on land, he learns that the largest breeding colony of the endangered California brown pelican is located on West Anacapa.

It is a daunting task: to create a trail running the entire coast of California is a commitment shared by many state agencies and organizations, including Coastwalk. Huell gets a firsthand look at portions of the trail in northern and southern California while learning about Coastwalk's commitment to organized walks, education and the support of the border to border California Coastal Trail.

Huell tours the the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes preserve with a representative of the Dunes Center, an agency, which along with other state, county and federal organizations, works to balance public use and resource protection of the largest, most biodiverse, coastal dune-lagoon ecosystem on earth. With 1,400 known species of birds, plants and animals and with the highest sand dune on the west coast, it is a place of rare beauty and significance.

Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge is located on the northwestern California coast near Arcata. The refuge protects wetlands and bay habitats for migratory birds, and includes the Lanphere Dunes. It is one of the most pristine dune ecosystems remaining in the Pacific Northwest. Join Huell as he tours the dunes and learns about the coastal sand dune habitats and species that rely on its preservation.

The Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens is the only public garden in the continental United States located directly on the coast. Huell explores this rare jewel set within coastal pines and coastal bluffs in Fort Bragg. In addition to its diverse flora, there is a retail nursery and garden shop as well as workshops, classes and lectures so you may take a bit of the garden home with you.

Huell tours the Fresno County Fruit Trail, an 80-mile stretch of orchards as well as the top pitted-fruit producing area of the world. The Fruit Trail is a great spot to sample locally-grown nectarines, apricots, peaches, and plums. Huell even stops by a gallery where local artists have shown their appreciation for the region's agricultural beauty.

Huell featured a group of rope climbers in an early "Videolog." He decides to join up with them again at the Los Angeles Valley College Gymnastic Center and find out if they’re still going strong.

Huell pulls off the road in Barstow for a bite to eat at the Slash X Cafe, a favorite of off-roaders who usually pull up on their dirt bikes, quads or trucks.