* Lava Beds National Monument. It's not exactly hiking, but exploring the lava tubes is loads of fun. Bring a helmet, sweatshirt and flashlight.

* Fern Canyon, Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. There are numerous fern canyons in California, but this gets my vote for the ferniest. It has the bonanza of being surrounded by a first-rate redwood forest. Gold Bluffs Beach is beautiful, and you're likely to see an elk herd along the way. Gold Bluffs Beach is a fantastic camping destination--it's where Lisa and I got engaged, August 9, 1995!

* Angel Island to Mt. Livermore. From the top, you get a 360 degree view of the San Francisco Bay, including downtown San Francisco, the Golden Gate, the East Bay mountains, Mt. Tam and Marin County. Often fog blocks some of the view, but the fog also adds to the visual interest. The military ghost towns on the island are worth a visit too. I enthusiastically recommend camping on the island as a bucket list item.

* San Bruno Mountain. On a clear day, the views of the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean are mesmerizing. When it's foggy (most of the time), at least you'll be able to enjoy the flowers blooming year-round.

* Mist Trail, Yosemite. Yosemite has many great trails, but this one stands out as a wonderful hike to a beautiful waterfalls--plus you're going to get wet, and you're almost certain to see rainbows. The big downside: people. Lots of them.

* Mesquite Flat Dunes, Death Valley National Park. These are the sand dunes you've seen in the Hollywood movies, and I think it is the prettiest sand dune system in California. Go at sunrise or sunset for the best scenery (or better yet, both).

* Telescope Peak, Death Valley National Park. On the east side, Death Valley. On the west side, Panamint Valley--which I think is even prettier. Beyond, views for up to 100 miles in every direction. As a bonus, Mahogany Flats campground is a fantastic desert campground.

* Anacapa Island to Inspiration Point. The view overlooking the other two Anacapa Islands and Santa Cruz Island is incredibly romantic.

* Hikes to the Desert Divide (part of the Pacific Crest Trail). To the west, Garner Valley, which I think is the prettiest valley in Southern California. To the east, the mountains of Joshua Tree Monument and the Coachella Valley stretching out to the Salton Sea. To the north, 10k+ feet San Jacinto and San Gorgonio mountains. To the south, 8k feet Santa Rosa Mountain. All around you, not a soul to be seen. All of the Desert Divide peaks are equally good in my opinion. Or, go straight for San Jacinto Peak for the best views (although you will see people there).

* Hiking in palm oases. Examples include Indian Canyons in Palm Springs and Borrego Palm Canyon in Anza-Borrego Park. My choice overall for convenience, cost and oasis quality is Coachella Valley Preserve in Thousand Palms.

You'll note that I didn't put any redwood-specific hikes on the list. For me, all redwood hikes are always worth doing, even when it's a second-growth forest--although old-growth forests are best. However, there's a certain sameness to redwood hikes, so it's hard to distinguish among them. Some of my favorite redwood destinations include Redwood National Park, Hendy Woods and Montgomery Woods. This site looked pretty helpful. Muir Woods and Big Basin, two of the most popular old-growth redwoods destinations, don't make my list because of the omnipresent crowds.

Still on my long-term to-do list: hike the Lost Coast, hike the Headwaters Forest Reserve, visit Santa Rosa and San Miguel Islands, climb Mt. Whitney and climb Half Dome.

Other perspectives: Everytrail offers a fine list of contenders. Mt. Tallac is a strong contender for its Lake Tahoe panorama. The Berry Falls loop in Big Basin is a great Bay Area hike but it wouldn't make my cut overall. McWay Falls in Julia Pfieffer State Park is iconic, but it's a very short stroll and the trail doesn't really lead you close to the falls (the view is is fairly distant). The South Grove in Calaveras Big Trees State Park is worth doing, but it's "just" another redwood hike.

Another list from BestCaliforniaHikes. Golden Canyon in Death Valley is a wonderful hike; go in the early morning to get the best colors. Mosaic Canyon in Death Valley is pleasant but wouldn't make my top list.

Want more? Try Tripleblaze's top 100 list. However, I think this list is more about popularity than quality. For example, Jughandle State Reserve (#83) is entirely skippable. The Trails.com lists (North, South) are better but are still popularity-driven and not totally useful, e.g., it lists jeep trails, and #10 on the south list are "trails in Joshua Tree" (well, that narrows things down).

So, what are your favorite California hikes? I don't care where they are located in California, although I do prefer day hikes (including car camping if applicable) over backpacking destinations. Email me and let me know.

UPDATE: some of the suggestions I've gotten: Panorama Trail in Yosemite, Dipsea Trail (Muir Woods to Stinson Beach), Salmon Creek Trail in Big Sur.

Rancho San Antonio is the nearest "hiking" park to my house, but I've never been a fan of it. I don't like the crowds or the fight for parking, but more than anything, I find the hikes there boring. It take 15+ minutes to get into the hills, and even after that investment, many of the trails are repetitive and visually uninteresting.

Recently, I tried a new trailhead in Rancho San Antonio, and it totally changed my attitude about the park. This time, I started at the Rhus Ridge parking lot and hiked to Black Mountain via the Rhus Ridge Trail and the Black Mountain Trail, a RT of about 9 miles and 2300 feet of elevation gain. In contrast to starting from the main Rancho San Antonio parking lot, the hike starts strong and keeps getting better. In fact, I think this is the nicest mid-range/half-day hike within a 20 (or even 30) minute radius of Mountain View.

Unlike many other trails in the Santa Cruz Mountains facing the Bay, where vegetation often obscures the view, the trail offers frequent panoramic vistas of the Bay from San Jose to Palo Alto, with Mt. Diablo and Mt. Tam poking up over the haze. Personally, I think the views along the way are better than the views from the top of Black Mountain. The trail goes through ecosystems ranging from moist and shaded ridgesides to fully exposed semi-arid chaparral. There was only one uninteresting spot when the trail goes along the power line easement for a bit (a number of Rancho San Antonio trails suffer from this defect), but it's brief. The first and last mile are quite steep, so it's a tough workout, but it's manageable for hikers that pace themselves, and the rest of the trail is nicely graded. Signage is excellent. I saw plenty of people but it wasn't "crowded" (the parking, discussed below, helps limit the crowds). All of Rancho San Antonio (and most parks in the Santa Cruz Mountains) gets frequent airplane noise. Refreshingly, the trail was mostly free of horse poop.

Two crucial downsides of this hike:

1) Like other Rancho San Antonio hikes, don't do this hike on warm days. I went when temperatures were in the 50s, and it was pleasant. Indeed, the perfect time to go is on a cool but sunny Winter day after a storm, when temperatures are comfortable but the storm has cleaned up the haze. In contrast, when the temperatures get into the high 60s or warmer, this hike will become miserable or even unbearable. On warm days (up into the 70s), I prefer hiking Wunderlich County Park because its trails are mostly shaded.

2) The parking lot is TINY! It holds maybe a dozen cars max. The local residents have done a good job making street parking illegal for a mile in every direction too, and I sense they take a perverse delight in towing illegally parked cars. The result is that finding a parking spot feels a little like winning the lottery. As usual, go early. The good news: if you can snag a spot, parking is free.

When I'm in the mood for a quick redwood hike, I typically go to Wunderlich County Park in Woodside, which is quite good but suffers from less-than-peak redwoodiness, plenty of crowds, and lots of horse poop. When I'm in the mood to drive a little longer for a better redwood experience, my new favorite is Fall Creek Unit of Henry Cowell State Park. Its selling points:

* redwoodiness: the park is in prime redwood country. It was heavily logged a century ago, but it remains a first-rate second-growth redwood forest. The lovely year-round Fall Creek enhances the scenery.

* convenience: it's just a half-mile outside of Felton. Getting there via Highway 17 is no joy, but I find 17 OK if I leave early and drive slow. The park's official website instructs visitors to drive to Santa Cruz and then back to Felton on Highway 9, but it's quicker for Valley residents to take 17 to Mt. Hermon Road, which turns into Felton Empire Road as it crosses Highway 9. The park entrance is just a half-mile further on Felton Empire on the right. Door-to-door from Mountain View is about 40 minutes with no traffic (only about 15 minutes each way more than Wunderlich for a noticeably better redwood experience).

* bonus attractions. In addition to top-quality and convenient redwood hike, Fall Creek Unit has other points of interest, including limekiln ruins (lime is used to make cement, which helped rebuild San Francisco after the 1906 fire) and the ruins of a cooperage which manufactured redwood barrels to ship the lime. The park also offers its own named redwood tree, "Big Ben," which I found underwhelming and not worth the extra hike (but the extra hike was worth it for other reasons). My favorite part of the park was "Lost Camp," an incredibly scenic hollow. Note: when we went, the signage from the Fall Creek Trail going to the Big Ben Trail was missing, so we blew right past it. Pay close attention at that intersection. See the entire photo album from our hike.

* free parking! The parking lot isn't that big, so go early. On the plus side, once we got past the limekilns, we pretty much had the park to ourselves.

Wunderlich remains my default redwood hike, but Fall Creek Unit is a great option to add to my mix. Plus, Felton or Santa Cruz offer convenient after-hiking festivities if time permits.

1) Local hikes from the Valley floor up to a ridge. These hikes tend to be steep thighbusters but they usually reward fit hikers with nice views.
2) Flat hikes along the Valley floor, which are often boring.
3) Mountain hikes, such as along the Desert Divide or in the Santa Rosa Wilderness or in Joshua Tree National Park, which are wonderful hikes but usually require a long and twisty drive to get there.

This is why the Coachella Valley Preserve, located beyond Thousand Palms basically near the end of Ramon Road, is such a revelation. It has everything going for it: interesting things to see; some reasonably level trails; close to the Valley's cities, especially for people staying down-Valley like in Palm Desert; and as an added bonus, free parking! Among other advantages, this is one of the few hikes on the Coachella Valley side of Joshua Tree and the Little San Bernardino Mountains; most hikes in Joshua Tree require a lengthy drive around the mountains to Twentynine Palms.

We hiked from the visitor center to McCallum Oasis, then took the loop trail through Moon Country. Total hiking distance of about 4 miles. Had we not been dragging along two very tired kids, we could have done the trail in about 90 minutes. The trail had three highlights:

1) Thousand Palms Oasis, a nice oasis. I must say that I love hiking to and in oases. A stand of palm trees may be my favorite type of trees to hike in/to (after redwoods of course). The California fan palms are lovely. In addition, I love the feel of oases. They are cool, green and lush--a stark contrast to their surroundings--and they attract all sorts of interesting fauna, especially birds.

2) McCallum Oasis. A little smaller than Thousand Palms Oasis, it had the added bonus of a small gorgeous pond and a small stream running off it. Really stunning.

3) A vista point on the hillside above McCallum Oasis. The vista point has a wonderful birds-eye view of McCallum Oasis and a 180 degree view of Joshua Tree National Park, with a through-the-gap view of San Gorgonio Peak.

This is earthquake country; the oases are clustered along the San Andreas fault where springs come through the gaps in the earth's plates. The fault isn't really "visible" but it's still a neat (and slightly unsettling) context.

I love hiking to the oases in Indian Canyon, but I recommend this hike over those. The pricetag for admission to the Indian Canyons has gotten too steep; it would cost over $30 for our family of four to go there, while this hike is free. Perhaps the Indian Canyon oases are a little nicer (the views of the Desert Divide and Palm Springs certainly are nice), but not $30 nicer, and the Coachella Valley Preserve is close enough that the drive time from Palm Springs is worth it. So it's hard to justify the high prices of Indian Canyon when this option is free.

The signage is pretty good on the trail, but all of the precautions about desert hiking apply: wear good shoes, drink lots of water, use sunscreen and remember that everything looks closer in the desert than it actually is. Hiking here during hot weather would be just miserable.

Our photo album from our visit.

In my long-running series of litigants saying one thing in court and another when talking to their friends online, consider this from a worker's comp case after a refrigerator fell on Clement:

The first issue Clement raises in his brief is whether pictures of him that appeared on Facebook and MySpace should have been admitted into evidence. He complains that the pictures “are a disgrace to the dignity of the workers' compensation proceedings and the legal system” and have nothing to do with his medical treatment....

We find no abuse of discretion in the allowance of the photographs. Clement contended that he was in excruciating pain, but these pictures show him drinking and partying. Certainly these pictures could have a bearing on Clement's credibility, albeit a negative effect that Clement might not wish to be demonstrated to the ALJ or the Commission. We hold that there was not an abuse of discretion in allowing the photographs.

Now that Facebook can do facial recognition, it should next develop a tool to automatically detect photos depicting alcoholic drinks and give users a way to automatically opt-out of those photos!

Prior blog posts in this series:

* YouTube Video Impeaches Witness' Credibility--Ensign Yacht v. Arrigoni
* Facebook Entries Negate Car Crash Victims' Physical Injury Claims
* Contrary MySpace Evidence Strikes a Litigant Again--HAC, Inc. v. Box
* MySpace Postings Foil Another Litigant--Sedie v. U.S.
* Disturbingly Humorous MySpace Posts Used as Impeaching Evidence in Spousal Abuse Case--Embry v. State
* Latest Example of Social Networking Site Evidence Contradicting In-Court Testimony--People v. Franco

Johnson and Arlotta dated. After the breakup, Johnson got a "harassment restraining order" (HRO) against Arlotta that:

prohibited him from (1) committing any acts "intended to adversely affect [Johnson's] safety, security, or privacy," (2) having "any contact" with Johnson "in person, by work or home e-mail, by telephone, or by other means or persons," and (3) visiting Johnson's Morgan Stanley "worksite."

Almost immediately thereafter, Arlotta created a blog titled "Help Ann Johnson," written in the third person. The blog "documented Arlotta's ongoing relationship issues with Johnson [and] discussed personal information about Johnson, including her involvement in sexually and physically abusive relationships, and questioned the state of her
mental health." Under pseudonyms, Arlotta then promoted the blog to Johnson's family, friends, contacts and employer as well as some unaffiliated parties, like the local media. Needless to say, many of these folks contacted Johnson regarding Arlotta's communications. The lower court found that Arlotta violated the HRO and ordered a new HRO that extended for 51 years (the appeals court adjusted this down to 50 years, the statutory maximum). The lower court also ordered the blog deleted (which has happened).

The appellate court agreed that Arlotta violated the prior HRO. Arlotta argued that his communications weren't directed to Johnson, but the court rejected that argument: "Arlotta intended his communications to reach Johnson and that they did, causing her humiliation and embarrassment." Johnson also argued that his information was truthful and lawfully obtained, but the court says harassment can occur even if those attributes are true.

The court rejected a constitutional challenge to the HRO, basically treating harassing speech as a class of content categorically excluded from First Amendment protection. I'm not sure about this approach. It seems like this was more appropriately treated as a situation where speech is also conduct, and the HRO regulated his conduct. I believe treating harassing speech as outside the First Amendment invites more mischief than playing with the speech/conduct divide.

The court also concluded that the HRO wasn't impermissibly vague. Arlotta argued that the HRO never expressly said he couldn't contact people in Johnson's network. The court says that's not a problem because the HRO

prohibits communications that are "intentionally calculated" to harass Johnson or have the effect of harassment, directly or indirectly, as exemplified by Arlotta's "Help Ann Johnson" blog and his contact with people close to Johnson.

Finally, Arlotta argued that Johnson could send takedown notices or sue for defamation or public disclosure of private facts, and these alternative ways of proceeding mooted the need for an HRO. The court rejected that based on the statute.

From my perspective, each of Arlotta's arguments had a point, in a tendentious sort of way. Yet, the arguments fell completely flat in light of the fact that Arlotta was, at best, trying to get around an existing HRO. We all know what Arlotta was trying to do, and his arguments felt very disingenuous.

This ruling leaves open a key question. Even under the prior HRO, could Arlotta have blogged about his dealings with Johnson if he did not try to bring it to the attention of others? After all, if his statements are true and not based on restricted information, Arlotta should be able to tell his story. Then again, a blog will show up in the search results, so a blog could be a passive-aggressive way of getting back to Johnson, and just as (if not more) effective as affirmatively reaching out to call attention to the blog. So try a different hypothetical: could Arlotta write and publish a book telling his story? I think the answer should be yes, so long as he lacked malicious intent (recall the initial HRO restricted him from intending to hurt Johnson's privacy).

This makes the court's remedy of ordering the blog deleted somewhat uncomfortable. Arlotta is allowed to speak his mind, and the court may have been able to excise the "harassing" component of the blog without wiping the entire blog off the Internet. Given the constitutional dimensions of this case, it's troubling that the court didn't evaluate that option more carefully.

Kash Hill's post on this case.

Dec. 2: The Economics of Privacy, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO

Jan. 20: ABA Business Law Section Cyberspace Committee Winter Working Meeting, San Francisco

Feb. 9: Faculty workshop, University of North Carolina Law School, Chapel Hill, NC

Feb. 10-11: WIPIP, University of Houston Law Center, Houston, TX

March 22: Oldham Lecture in Intellectual Property Law (should be open to the public), University of Akron School of Law, Akron, OH

March 24: Internet Law Works-in-Progress, New York Law School, New York, NY

April 13: Social Networking Sites: Law, Policy and Practical Strategies, Suffolk University Law School, Boston, MA

April 20-21: Trademark Scholars' Roundtable, Chicago, IL

May 2: Lawyers' Guide to Using Social Media for Professional and Client Development, PLI, San Francisco

May 4: American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Annual meeting, Vancouver BC (to discuss DoctoredReviews.com and patient reviews)

May 5-9: I'm trying to decide if I'll go to the INTA Annual Meeting in Washington DC. My faculty discretionary account probably will be exhausted by then.

May 18-19: Teaching Consumer Law conference, University of Houston Law Center, Houston, TX

June 1-2: SFIPLA meeting in Healdsburg, CA

June 10-12: AALS Mid-Year Meeting, Berkeley, CA

Another entry in the annals of social media evidence undercutting a litigant's testimony. This time, a YouTube video becomes the "gotcha":

Ross Sr.'s credibility was severely impeached at trial, most notably through the introduction of a YouTube video of Ross Sr. and Fabrice Fontanez on a yacht in the South of France directly contradicting Ross Sr.'s sworn testimony that he had only seen Fontanez on one occasion, at the Norwalk Cove Marina in Connecticut, since the dealings regarding the sale of the yacht and that he had no business relationship with Fontanez. Contrary to this testimony, the YouTube video, a promotional video for NuMarine, displayed Ross Sr. with one of his yacht dealers on a yacht in St. Tropez with Fabrice Fontanez in 2010, establishing that he had not only seen Fontanez on at least one additional occasion, but also that he had a business relationship with Fontanez. Further, when presented with this video on cross-examination, Ross Sr. was at best evasive in answering questions concerning the identities of the people shown in the video.

A blogger asked the city how long it suspended a rogue police officer. The city refused the blogger's sunshine request. The court did too, saying as part of its multi-factor analysis:

The threshold consideration under the common law right to access is whether the plaintiff has standing. Newspapers are afforded standing as entities that collectively represent the public interest. See Home News v. State Dep't of Health, 144 N.J. 446, 454 (1996) (“The press's role as ‘the eyes and ears of the public’ generally is sufficient to confer standing on a newspaper that seeks access to public documents.”). Both parties agree that Paff's sporadic blogging activity does not qualify him as a journalist. See Too Much Media, LLC v. Hale, 206 N.J. 209, 237 (2011). Thus, his interest in the subject matter at issue is not that of a news source. [some cites omitted]

It's hard to stand up for the blogger if he gives up the issue himself. But even a sporadic blogger can act as "the eyes and ears of the public," especially a niche watchdog blog like "NJ Public Employee Discipline Appeals." Then again, given the troubling Hale precedent, maybe the New Jersey courts have just decided to privilege newspapers over bloggers. It would be great if courts like this explicitly acknowledged that they're making a silly and incoherent choice.

At trial, both Jessi and Lee were specifically asked about how their lives had changed following the accident, and both of them gave very similar responses. Jessi, who at the time of the accident had just graduated from high school, testified that before the accident, she studied all the time. Following the accident, she stated she still studied, but it was painful. She said the only thing she could not do following the accident was sit ups and study for long periods of time. At the time of trial, Jessi was a senior at Nicholls State University maintaining a 4.0 grade point average.

Jessi was also questioned regarding some of her routine physical activities, especially in regard to entries she made on her Facebook page. She acknowledged that she runs, or rather jogs, regularly to stay in shape, and even attempted to do an exercise program called P9OX with a friend, which she described as being “really tough.”...

Lee likewise testified that his lifestyle before and after the accident were pretty much the same. He still participated in all the same activities and maintained his military commitment, including successfully completing physical aptitude tests required by the Army twice a year. Still, Lee testified that before the accident, he always stayed active and played a lot of sports, and following the accident, while he continued to stay active, it was “not as much, because I find that after activity that it's a lot more pain than usual.”

On cross examination, however, Lee acknowledged several entries from his Facebook page where he reported frequently “working out” and also playing sports such as basketball, tennis, “ultimate Frisbee,” and softball, sometimes engaging in multiple sessions of sporting activities in a single day. He further acknowledged that he wrote on his Facebook page that he had participated in a softball tournament in the month before trial, which happened to be two days before his final visit with. Dr. Cenac. When asked if he had informed Dr. Cenac of any of injuries he had sustained while playing sports, he stated that he told Dr. Cenac that he stayed “active,” but that he was “not inclined” to tell Dr. Cenac that he was playing on softball teams.

Considering the testimony and medical evidence presented, we cannot say that the jury was manifestly erroneous in refusing to award any damages for physical disability or loss of enjoyment of life. The record clearly shows that neither Jessi nor Lee have experienced any significant limitations or impairments as a result of the injuries they sustained in the May 31, 2008 accident.

More examples in this line of cases:

* Contrary MySpace Evidence Strikes a Litigant Again--HAC, Inc. v. Box
* MySpace Postings Foil Another Litigant--Sedie v. U.S.
* Disturbingly Humorous MySpace Posts Used as Impeaching Evidence in Spousal Abuse Case--Embry v. State
* Latest Example of Social Networking Site Evidence Contradicting In-Court Testimony--People v. Franco

Family

* Me in front of the Peter & Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, Russia (2011) [this is my current online avatar at most sites--thanks to Oliver Metzger for taking this photo]
* Dina and Binoculars (2010) [there is something about this photo that cracks me up every time I see it]
* Dina with her new Pillow Pet (2010)
* Jacob at the Sonoma Coast beach (2010) [this has been my computer wallpaper since I took it]
* Jacob kayaking (2010)
* Dina the Flower Girl (2009)
* Dina and Daddy at Craig and Sarah's wedding (2009) [this was my Facebook avatar for a couple years]

Travel

* Sunset from East Bay Campground on Angel Island (2011)
* Vernal Falls and Dina's drawing of it (2011)
* Erasmusbrug, Rotterdam (2010)
* Erasmusbrug, Rotterdam (2010)

Other

* Slinky collection #1 and #2 (2011)
* Vegan Banana Split Cupcakes (2008) [these tasted as good as they look]
* Slinky Cake for my 40th birthday (2008)

Mercer Caverns, Murphys.

I've been to Mercer Caverns a few times over the past 2 decades. I like the caverns for their convenient location and visual interest compared to the other local cave options. Moaning Cavern in Vallecito is also convenient, but the main tour just visits one big chamber. California Caverns in Mountain Ranch is interesting inside, but it requires a long twisty ride on backroads from Highway 4. Mercer Caverns, just a mile outside of downtown Murphys, is easy to get to; and the tour goes through multiple chambers with diverse and interesting formations. The cave is a cool respite to a hot summer day. We were comfortable wearing our sweatshirts despite the 90+ degree day outside.

Overall, I was disappointed with the tour. First, it's pretty expensive. It cost our family of 4 about $45 for the 45 minute tour. Second, our tour guide was uninspired. The tour guides work off a script that's fine (it has some stock jokes and anecdotes that I remembered from many years ago), but our guide showed her youth. Third, although the kids seemed to enjoy themselves at the time, I don't know that the cave visit made much of an impression. The cave was soon forgotten and didn't make any highlights lists.

Yosemite. See the photos.

Yosemite is filled with icons revered around the world: Half Dome, El Capitan, Yosemite Falls and so much more. Yet, I haven't gone in decades because I've been deterred by the seemingly omnipresent and crushing crowds. This year, we decided to go despite the crowds because the huge runoff meant the waterfalls were running especially high.

We parked at Curry Village, took the shuttle to the Mist Trail trailhead, and hiked up the Mist Trail to the top of Vernal Falls. The Mist Trail is noteworthy on three fronts. First, the trail is beautiful, especially as it goes into the splash zone and then to the fall's top with its emerald pools. Second, the trail was PACKED with people. At some narrow junctures, we had to wait for traffic going in the opposite direction. Third, it is dangerous! We went right after 3 people went over Vernal Falls to their death, and more people have died since. Some of those folks made riskier choices than we did, but the trail is very steep and very slippery.

Remarkably, both kids handled the trail fine. Jacob is a bit of a mountain goat, so I wasn't worried about him, but Dina likes the concept of hiking more than she likes the reality. My wife found a way to motivate Dina, however, by promising an ice cream cone back at Curry Village if she got to the top without complaining much. Dina got to the top, didn't complain much, and got her earned treat. Everyone won!

We went on a Monday, and Yosemite was still quite crowded. It was unquestionably better than going on a weekend or holiday, but the off-season is a better time to visit.

Camping at Angel Island. See the photos and videos.

Angel Island is a fantastic camping destination. It easily ranks in the top 10 most scenic campgrounds I've ever camped at. If it weren't for one serious defect, I'd rank this one of the best camping destinations I've been to.

Getting There. Ferries service Angel Island from Tiburon, San Francisco and Alameda. The Tiburon ferries operate frequently, but Tiburon isn't convenient unless you live in Marin. We took the Blue and Gold Ferry from Pier 41, which only operates a few times a day during the week. We took the 1:05 pm ferry to the island (which stopped in Tiburon along the way) and the 1:45 ferry back the next day, giving us about 24 hours on the island.

As an integral part of our adventure, we took mass transit almost the whole way: Caltrain from Mountain View to Millbrae (we drove to the Mountain View train station), BART from Millbrae to Embarcadero station, the electric streetcar from Embarcadero to Pier 39, the boat from Pier 41 to Ayala Cove, and then a hike from the cove to our campground. The mass transit added a couple hours of extra travel time, but the multiple transportation modes was exciting to my son, more earth-friendly, cheaper than driving plus parking, and didn't involve us leaving a car overnight in a San Francisco parking garage.

The Campground. We camped at East Bay #3. This site was huge and fairly well set-off from the other two East Bay sites. We didn't hear our neighboring campers or see them except at the water spigot (although we could hear some shouting from the workcamp at the Immigration Station). The East Bay sites are much more private than the Sunrise sites, which have effectively no visual or aural privacy from each other. Both the East Bay and Sunrise sites have favorable microclimates compared to the Ridge campsites on the island's southwest side. By being on the island's east side, they are shielded from the fog pouring in from the west. Indeed, our tent's rain-fly was barely wet in the morning. The mountain ridge also blocks some of the wind, but we did get a little wind.

When the fog lifts, the Ridge sites have jaw-dropping views of San Francisco and the Golden Gate. However, in summer, the fog rarely lifts for very long In contrast, our campsite had fantastic mostly fog-free 180 degree views of the East Bay from Richmond to Oakland. Among other points of interest, the shipping lanes run along the island's east side, so we watched ship after ship trundle past. At sunset, I watched the fog roll through the Golden Gate and across the bay, hit the East Bay hills, and spread progressively further north. Check out my short videos of that scene. I could have spent hours just watching the fog, the ships and the sunset. It was amazing.

The campsite required about a 45 minute hike from Ayala Cove. It wasn't very steep or arduous, but we had packed light. The campsites have a water spigot for fresh water, so you don't need to pack water. The campground has an outhouse. Our campsite also had a picnic table and food locker.

The campsite, including the reservation fee, cost less than $40/night. If you want a comparable view of the Bay at a hotel, expect to pay many hundreds of dollars a night. Camping on Angel Island is unquestionably one of the best bargains in the Bay Area. Even better, because we were willing to go mid-week, we had no problem getting a prime campsite with about 10 days advance notice. Weekend reservations will require more advance planning.

Now, about the major downside. From East Bay #3, we could hear a buoy warning signal going 24/7. It wasn't very loud, but I'm sensitive to those kinds of noises. If you listen carefully to my videos, you'll hear it in the background. Then, as the fog deepened through the night, other foghorns turned on. By pre-dawn, 3 or 4 different foghorns were going simultaneously along with the buoy warning, each with their own sound and cadence. It was like a discordant symphony--beautiful in a way, but not very peaceful. I take melatonin when I camp to help get some sleep, so I ended up doing OK overall; and my son slept through it all. If you can sleep with earplugs, bring those.

What to Do. Angel Island activities mostly relate to nature, military or immigration.

For nature, you can hike or bike around the island and to the top of Mt. Livermore. We did both. Mt. Livermore offers 360-degree views of the San Francisco Bay, but the view depends heavily on the fog situation. For the best views, go on a clear winter or spring day. In summer, it's highly likely that some of the iconic sights--such as the Golden Gate Bridge or downtown San Francisco--will be partially or wholly obscured in the fog. The good news is that the fog is aesthetically pleasing itself...so long as it's not on top of you! The loop around the island offers constant beautiful views with the same fog caveat.

For military history, Angel Island is remarkable. I was blown away by Ft. McDowell (on the east side) and Camp Reynolds (on the west side). They are exceptionally well-preserved ghost towns with interesting ruins set among beautiful views. I could have spent more time poking around Ft. McDowell, where visitors have effectively unrestricted access to most of the abandoned buildings (be safe, but many of the buildings still look very sturdy). Camp Reynolds has a totally different feel, and it was instantly obvious that it was from a different military era. I didn't get much out of the batteries and Nike missile installations, but they are an important part of Angel Island's military history as well.

For immigration, the immigration station has been nicely restored. Unfortunately, we missed the guided tour, but we still enjoyed taking the self-tour and inspecting the remaining buildings. I include the quarantine station at Ayala Cove in the immigration category; and while it's less interesting than the immigration station, it's a nice complementary destination.

It's hard to see all of the sites during a single day trip to Angel Island, even if you catch the first boat in and leave on the last boat out. Overnighting on the island left us with the perfect amount of time to do everything. I would have enjoyed another night on the island (except for the foghorns) but only to watch the fog and the ships; we saw virtually everything else we wanted to see.

On a day trip, you might choose to take the tram ride around the island with its pre-recorded instructions or rent a Segway or bikes. If you're a Bay Area local, bring your own bikes on the ferry if you don't want to hike.

Kayaking at Elkhorn Slough. See the photos and a video.

I plan to take Dina on father-daughter overnight trips similar to the trips I've done with Jacob the past 2 years, but I didn't think Dina was quite ready this year. Instead, I proposed a day trip, and she said she wanted to go kayaking. This might have something to do with the fact that I took Jacob kayaking last year when we went to Mendocino and he loved it. I chose the Elkhorn Slough for kayaking due to its proximity (less than 70 minutes from Mountain View) and the odds of seeing marine mammals.

Unfortunately, the kayaking trip was an unexpected bust. We took the 2 hour family tour from Monterey Bay Kayaks. This was a disappointment on a few fronts.

First, I misjudged Dina's readiness for kayaking. Her short arms just weren't strong enough to hold a kayak paddle, so kayaking wasn't very participatory for her. She didn't complain, but it wasn't the experience I planned.

Second, the tour guide wasn't very good. Inexplicably, he paid more attention to the other family than ours. More importantly, he didn't relate well to kids. He was soft-spoken, prone to tangents, and dry. Dina couldn't hear him, and when she could, his commentary didn't resonate with her.

Third, the two-hour tour barely got out of the Moss Landing harbor--and everything in the harbor could be easily seen from the harbor parking lot. So we didn't see much from the kayak that we couldn't have seen from our car. In fact, after we got out of the kayak, we walked back around the parking lot to get a better view of the sights we passed on the kayak. Naturally, a longer tour would go deeper into the slough itself, but a 2 hour tour was plenty for Dina.

On the plus side, we saw plenty of sea lions, otters, seals, jellyfish and birds. Elkhorn Slough looks worth another visit, but probably as an adults-only visit where I can see more of the slough.

Vegetarian Tourism

We are vegetourists, and that's true even when we're close to home. Some of our stops during the week:

Garden Fresh, Mountain View. Garden Fresh has been one of my favorite restaurants since the 1990s. I became a little disenchanted with the restaurant when it changed owners in the early 2000s because I felt the quality dropped off some. Since then, I think the quality has improved, although it's been accompanied by higher prices and fewer freebies. For example, back in the old days, the lunch special used to include fried spring rolls, and all of the dishes included complimentary brown rice (even at dinner). Still, Garden Fresh is one of the better deals around, and its best dishes are excellent.

On our most recent trip, we got the lettuce cups and the veggie chicken curry. The lettuce cups were not nearly as good as I remember; something was "off" with the flavor. I don't think we'll try that dish again. The veggie chicken curry is wonderful comfort food. Sometimes I'm not in the mood for something tasting so "heavy," but this time it was exactly what I wanted.

Some of our other favorites: Mongolian veggie chicken and Hunan veggie chicken (these dishes are pretty similar), basil moo shoo rolls, the veggie curry noodle soup and the moo shoo vegetables. Many other dishes are good too. I also like the tofu chowder they frequently serve complimentary. My wife prefers the hot-and-sour soup, and sometimes they will substitute that for the tofu chowder without charging more.

The restaurant itself is hardly atmospheric, although it is slightly more spruced up than it was in the 1990s. It's basically a few rows of formica tables in a mini-mall. Then again, my culinary tastes were honed in Southern California, where the best meals always were in mini-malls, so the setting doesn't bother me. For us, its convenience is an added bonus; it's in easy biking distance from our house.

Mineral, Murphys. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around Mineral. It's an upscale vegetarian restaurant located in Murphys, a small and out-of-the-way Sierra foothills town. There probably isn't another all-vegetarian restaurant within 60+ miles in any direction. When Mineral first launched in 2007, it aimed for the high-end vegetarian connoisseur flush with dot com money. See my review of the restaurant in that phase. In 2008, during the last crash, it revamped into a more mid-scale vegetarian restaurant/cafe, broadening its audience and becoming a place where we felt comfortable bringing the kids for lunch.

The boom must be back on, because Mineral has abandoned its mid-scale orientation and is back to positioning itself as a high-end gourmet vegetarian restaurant. The good news is that the food remains excellent, with extraordinary attention to detail, and the prices are reasonable (compared to Bay Area prices) for the quality of the food and presentation. We had the Mineral Burger (an excellent burger), the "Land Scallops" (a tofu dish), the Watermelon Salad and the Green Papaya Salad, and we devoured everything from all plates before they went back. Total cost at lunch was about $65.

Unfortunately for us, Mineral has lost any pretense of being a kid-friendly place. Even if the menu options look passable to kids, the tastes are just too sophisticated for most kids' palates. I understand that not all restaurants cater to kids, but it's an issue when we're on a family vacation. The server basically warned us when we walked in with Jacob and Dina in tow, asking us discreetly if we'd been to Mineral before as a way of trying to signal that it wasn't a kid-friendly place. It's even more strange because the proprietors were warm and gracious towards our kids and let them watch the laborious presentation of each dish, which our kids totally enjoyed.

For now, assume Mineral is an adults-only place. Murphys has better kid-friendly options just across the street if you're on a family vacation. If you're on an adults-only vacation and you haven't tried Mineral, I highly recommending taking the trip to Murphys for a meal. It's worth the detour.

Sunflower Drive-In, Fair Oaks. This is a funky place. Old Town Fair Oaks is a ramshackle business district with undomesticated chickens wandering around. Then, this restaurant seeks to be the cost-effective vegetarian fast food mecca that we as vegetarians dream about. Most seating is outdoors, amidst the chickens, with unappetizing views of the parking lot baking in the hot Central Valley sun.

Sunflower Drive-in a holdover from the 1970s, and the menu mostly reflects a conception of vegetarianism from 4 decades ago. Their flagship item is a 1970s-style nutburger. Nutburgers have become trendy again, but their recipe is anything but trendy. The nutburger was the best thing we ordered, but it hardly compares with the veggie burgers at Mineral or Source or even Smart Alec's.

Other items were hit-and-miss. The falafel--which some people raved about at Yelp--was only vaguely reminiscent of a "real" falafel. I thought it was bland and uninspired. The kids' menu items were about what you'd expect--the burrito was lots of bean and cheese but not much else; the quesadilla was cheese and not much else. Chips and salsa were run-of-the-mill. The vegan potato salad was pretty good. Vegan cupcakes were as dry as you would expect. The root beer float was a rare overpriced item: $4 buys a paper cup, a dollop of ice cream and a can of off-the-shelf root beer.

As many other reviewers have noted, for a restaurant called a "drive-in" and hawking pseudo-fast food, they process orders at a maddeningly glacial speed. I don't know exactly why things take so long for what should be a well-oiled machine after decades of practice. We placed our order at 11:35 am and the bulk of the order took about 20 minutes on an ordinary workday. With properly calibrated expectations, this wait isn't insufferable; but compared to a place like Smart Alec's in Berkeley or Oreans in Pasadena where fantastic vegetarian food comes speedily, it's nevertheless baffling. I guess their method of operation works for them, but I imagine they could boost profits and throughput if they upgraded their operations.

Although I can't say the food rocked my world, we'll revisit Sunflower Drive-in when we go to visit my stepfather (now living in an assisted living facility just a couple miles away). It's cheap, filling and tasty enough to justify the small detour.

Plant Cafe, San Francisco. Jacob and I patronized the location right by the Embarcadero BART station (101 California Street). At lunchtime, it's a high-volume operation. Order at the counter, hunt for a seat, and wait for the food to arrive.

We tried four dishes: the Plant Burger, Masala Vegetable Stew, Shiitake Spring Rolls (we took it for later) and a Chocolate-Banana Smoothie. The Plant Burger was a little disappointing after all the Yelp raves. My son rejected it outright; I thought the burger was average. Personally, I think Source has the best veggie burger in town. The Masala Vegetable Stew, which comes with some nice flatbread, tasted excellent, was a generous portion, and was priced attractively. My son hijacked my bowl and ate most of the stew. The Shiitake Spring Rolls were tasty but fairly expensive for what you get. The Chocolate-Banana Smoothie was fantastic, but it had an unexpectedly "adult" chocolate taste that I expected my son would reject. He loved it anyway. My overall assessment was strongly positive, and I'm sure we'll be back. I know some reviewers have complained about the price. We spent about $35 for our meal, and I thought that was fair.

I noted that my old law firm (Cooley Godward) is in the same building. If I still worked at the law firm and had this restaurant in the building, I would eat there nearly every day. We need more restaurant options like Plant Cafe. Please come to the South Bay!

Saturn Cafe, Santa Cruz. Saturn Cafe is a venerable vegetarian institution, but it easily can get lost in the shuffle. Trendy restaurants like Source and Plant Cafe have stolen some of its thunder, and Saturn Cafe's chainification has diluted its uniqueness. But Saturn Cafe always delivers a hearty, tasty, cost-effective meal, and it retains a special place in our heart accordingly.

I kept Saturn Cafe as a secret post-kayaking destination for Dina. Even when the kayaking trip went bust, I knew Saturn Cafe would be a hit. We took Dina there a year ago and she loved it--the decor, the coloring menu and the food. What fun!

This trip she had banana walnut pancakes and I had the very tasty vegan breakfast burrito. Both were completely devoured before we left our seats, feeling quite full. The bill was a paltry $15.

I wish Saturn Cafe would come to the South Bay. It would compete directly with Hobee's in both food and price, but I would pick Saturn Cafe over Hobee's (a long-time favorite of mine) both for being completely vegetarian and for its more flavorful options.

For people who came of age during the Cold War (like me), the idea of taking a vacation to Russia is intimidating and surreal. For decades, I was propagandized that Russia was The Enemy hellbent on destroying the United States and our way of life. And more than a century ago, my ancestors fled Russia to escape from anti-Semitism and war. Now the Russian government wanted to pay thousands of dollars of travel costs so I could speak less than 5 minutes. It took a while for me to wrap my head around this trip.

The Iron Curtain is gone, but Russia remains a hard place to get to. There are no non-stops from the United States to St. Petersburg, so it’s a long trip. Russia is an awkward 11 hours ahead of California, making real-time travel planning hard. Plus, Russia’s visa requirements are onerous bordering on ridiculous. To get a visa, I had to pay $250 and spend a half-day getting to the San Francisco consulate (including an hour wait just to drop off the application—which I was told is comparatively quick). The visa application asked unnecessarily invasive questions, and the visa is both date- and geography-restricted, precluding any spur-of-the-moment changes in travel plans.

Although the hurdles getting to Russia seemed very Soviet, once I arrived, the remaining Soviet influences were minimal. If anything, St. Petersburg has learned the virtues of a market economy all too well. I found very few bargains. Instead, everywhere I went, someone was trying to pull more cash out of my pocket. Large tourist sites like the Peter & Paul Fortress or Peterhof had a confounding range of optional admissions, each with its own price. St. Petersburg’s tourist industry needs to learn the merits of all-you-can-eat ticket options.

One of my guidebooks indicated that independent tourists need 24 hours to acclimate to St. Petersburg. A new visitor has to navigate at least three challenges:

1) the language. Most street and business signs are in Cyrillic, so they are effectively indecipherable for non-Russian speakers. Even when signs are in the Latin alphabet, they are still in the Russian language. English signage is rare. Some St. Petersburg residents speak English, but many do not; and even the best English-speaking Russians had a dicey grasp of English that created significant barriers to mutual understanding.

2) the water. The guidebooks indicate that the St. Petersburg municipal water might contain giardia and therefore isn’t safe to drink. It took me some time to come up with a cost-effective alternative hydration plan. On the plus side, many venues had free restrooms.

3) transportation. Taxis aren’t regulated, so every fare is negotiated, and taxi drivers love to feast on American tourists. St. Petersburg really needs to impose metered taxi fares. It would increase trust in the system and encourage more spending. The guidebooks recommend having your hotel make the taxi arrangements to increase safety, but the hotels don’t negotiate the rates when they make these calls, and the taxi drivers use that to their advantage.

Tourists who speak Russian might feel comfortable taking advantage of other transportation options, like buses, shared taxis ("marshrutkas") or commuter trains. After I determined that taxis weren’t reliable, I used the subway. The subway is pretty cheap (25 rubles per ride, less than $1), trains came frequently, and it felt safe to me. The big downside was that the closest subway stop was an over 20 minute walk from my hotel, making it time-consuming for me to get into the central core. Note: the Metro stops at midnight and the bridges over the Neva River start going up as early as 1:30 am to let ships pass through, creating the possibility of getting stuck on the wrong side of the river. If you’re partying late, watch your schedule. Another note: because all of the subway signs are in Russian, the guidebooks helpfully recommend counting stops to your destination.

Because of the visa hassles and the steep acclimation curve, I can make a pretty good case that many short-term visitors to St. Petersburg are better off going through an organized tour than traveling independently.

Once you get there, the highlight is St. Petersburg’s city center--a UNESCO Heritage Site, and justifiably so. This is the result of three key dates in St. Petersburg’s history:

1) 1703, when Peter the Great founded the new capital city from a previously undeveloped swamp.
2) 1917, when the tsar abdicated and the Bolsheviks took over.
3) 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell and Russia started on the path back to a market economy.

(1941-1944, the Siege of St. Petersburg, is also a crucial milestone, but the siege was rarely discussed or even acknowledged in the touristy areas).

Because St. Petersburg was founded from the ground up, it did not have to work around an existing city layout or architectural style. Further, as the Russian empire’s capital and home of the royal ruling dynasty, from the beginning the city had significant wealth flowing into it from throughout the Russian empire. This resulted in a newly built city with enough money and power to afford world-class European architects.

Then, starting in 1917, the door shut on changes to the city center. Most investment stopped in 1917, so for 70+ years the central core was largely unaffected by the many architectural fads and mistakes of the 20th century.

Thus, the city center is like a time capsule of well-funded 18th and 19th century architecture. For block after block, the city presents architectural gems and an impressive degree of architectural consistency. Subtract the cars and the business signage, and many streets looked very similar to how they looked in the 1910s. This architectural consistency does come at a cost--it restricts the central city’s economic growth, as it suppresses new developments projects in the central city.

Peter the Great also founded the city as Russia's face to Europe and thus as a "European" city. He succeeded wildly. In addition to the European architects he brought in, the city was built around canals that reminded me a lot of Amsterdam.

St. Petersburg has done a remarkable job cleaning up since the Soviet era. Many of its finest treasures have been restored after decades of neglect or mismanagement. However, St. Petersburg has a tourist “veneer.” Once tourists get off the beaten path, things can be in a pretty serious state of disrepair. For example, the west end of Vasilyesvskiy Island (where my hotel was located) was dominated by massive but run-down Soviet-era concrete block apartments.

As a prosperous capital city, St. Petersburg has a remarkable tradition as Russia’s leading city for arts, literature and intellectuals. I was surprised that the city doesn’t do more to recognize its classical musical heritage. The composers with ties to St. Petersburg is unbelievable: Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Mussorgsky, Stravinsky, Borodin, Glazunov and many others who I’m less familiar with. Collectively, these composers fill a few dozen hours in my iTunes. I would have loved to better understand what made this community tick and why it was so successful for so long.

Although the Soviet era is clearly over, its most obvious legacy was overstaffing--everywhere. I couldn’t believe the conference staffing; over dozen staffers were in the room for our 75 minute panel. They were running around looking busy, but I have no idea what most of them were doing. Every tourist attraction had many staff members doing nothing but sitting around watching things. In some cases, like in the Hermitage, that made sense from a security standpoint. In other cases, it seemed to be pretty clearly make-work. Despite the glut of human capital (or maybe because of it), Russian customer service was stereotypically indifferent, if not downright unfriendly. My singular memory of my visit to the city was the many times I was told a terse “nyet” by a dour Russian.

St. Petersburg weather in mid-June was stereotypically marginal. I had 2 half-days of mostly sunny weather. The rest of the time alternated between cloudy, drizzly and occasionally rainy. Temperatures were mild: low 60s to low 70s.

Due to its Northerly location and the scarcity of fresh produce combined with the language barriers, St. Petersburg poses big challenges to vegetarians. I went to three restaurants:

* the Idiot, which numerous guidebooks recommend and was recently written up in the New York Times. It’s easy to see why it gets the raves: it’s conveniently located, it is extremely atmospheric, it caters to American ex-pats, and it offers complimentary vodka shots. Nevertheless, I thought this place was overrated. First, the restaurant has more vegetarian options than many Russian restaurants, but it’s not actually that vegetarian-friendly. Second, my meal was unremarkable. Finally, prices are not cheap. Grade: C.

* Tandoor on Voznesesky Prospect right by St. Isaacs Cathedral. Northern Indian food with numerous vegetarian options. The food was surprisingly good for a city at the 60th parallel; it was competent by my standards. Also not cheap. Grade: B.

* Cafe Botanika on Ul Pestelya near the Summer Gardens. One of the few bona fide vegetarian restaurants in the St Petersburg metro area, and easily the best meal of my visit. I had 4 small blini with honey (delicious), a bowl of borscht, and a soy wrap sandwich. Cost for the three dishes was 660 rubles (about $24)—not cheap, but it kept me full for the day. The interior decoration was hip and modern, and there was a separate two-level play area for kids. This place could relocate to California and compete there successfully. Grade: A.

Tourist attractions and grades:

* Hermitage. Grade: A-. The Hermitage bears many commonalities with the Louvre. It had an amazing mix of depth and breadth in a palatial setting. For me, the deep and high-quality collection of French impressionist paintings were the highlight. There would be an entire room of works by a brand-name artist, and then, whoa! Another whole room of nothing but that artist’s work. Of the many other cool items there, the peacock clock stood out the most. Notes if you go: you have to check your bags, and they charge extra (200 rubles, over $7) for the right to take photographs. One sour note: many of the paintings were visibly damaged (such as significant cracks in the paint), perhaps from being hidden from the Nazis and perhaps from mismanagement. The Hermitage doesn’t seem that careful about managing climate control in the rooms.

* English-speaking canal boat tour from Anglotourismo, located on the Fontanki canal right by Nevsky Prospeckt (Nab. Reki Fontanki 21). Grade: C. I normally take boat tours at the beginning of my visit as a way to get my bearings. Taking it at the end, like I did this time, means that I’d already seen some of the sights. The tour guide’s narration was uninspired, although her English was excellent. It didn’t help that it was raining (a common occurrence), so we couldn’t seen much through the window. I thought this was overpriced.

* St. Isaacs Cathedral. Grade: B. Many official St. Petersburg tourism photos showcase this icon. In addition to its beauty, it earns bonus points for sheer size. I loved the malachite and lapis columns inside the building. We didn’t go up to the colonnade (an extra charge, naturally). You might visit the bar at the top of the W Hotel for a very similar city view without the lines.

* Church on Spilled Blood. Grade: A. Another St. Petersburg icon even though it's a knockoff of Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow. It's a traditional Russian Orthodox church with onion domes done in crazy colors and patterns like it was tricked out by a Disney imagineer. This church was exquisite both inside and out. I was especially impressed with the renovations, which were masterfully done. This place has been spiffed up and perhaps has never looked better. The mosaics were beautiful, but I was even more impressed with the carvings of marble and other precious rocks, some of which were so well-done that I nearly cried. When you’re inside, look all the way up the domes for a friendly surprise. This place is worth the extra investment of an audio tour or a guided tour.

* Peter and Paul Fortress. Grade: A-. The original heart of St. Petersburg, the fortress was filled with interesting sights and had spectacular views across the Neva River to the Hermitage and other mansions along the Neva’s south bank. It was bizarre to see people sunbathing on the island's "beaches"—and even more bizarrely, swimming in the Neva—on a mild summer day. This was another attraction filled with an overwhelming number of a la carte payment options, so everywhere you turn there is another ticket office.

We made it to the cannon firing at noon (free). This was quite popular, so if you want unrestricted views, get there early enough to be at the front of the line, or pay (yet another a la carte option) to walk along the redoubt’s top and watch the proceedings from on high. For at least 20 minutes, we were entertained by a military band playing Russian national tunes, a rifle company showing off their synchronization and various tricks with their rifles, and the march of a flag company up and down the redoubt. I understand that such displays are designed to inspire patriotism and nationalism, but both my co-traveler and I thought it was another example of overstaffing. It was especially shocking to see the soldiers march into the square doing a variation of the goose-step and doing an arm salute not dissimilar to the Nazi’s salute. Seriously? A tip about the cannon firing: the shooting cannon is on the redoubt’s top--it's not from the cannons you can see in the square--so many of us in the audience were shocked by the cannonshot even though we knew it was coming.

* Peter and Paul Cathedral (inside the Peter and Paul Fortress). Grade: B. The outside is another spectacular St. Petersburg icon. The inside was mostly raised white marble tombs for royalty, with much debate over whose crypt was located where. We rarely have debates over burial locations in the United States, so all of the location angst seemed characteristically European. The interior, while beautiful, was understated and bordered on unremarkable. While we waited to enter, a four-piece band serenaded us during the noon hour with lovely classical music from the tower.

* Trubetskoy Bastion (inside the Peter and Paul Fortress). Grade: B. This was a key prison for political prisoners in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The inmate roster is like a who’s who of well-known Russian dissidents. It looked like a rotation through the prison became a badge of honor—just like a stint in the big house has become a status symbol in the rap community and in certain white collar circles. But the prison was used equally against rebels trying to overthrow the government and later the government officials who got overthrown. The cells were surprisingly big and prisoners sometimes were afforded some luxuries, but overall this seemed like a place I would not want to be. The museum has some redundancies—most of the open cells are identical, and the first and second floors are largely duplicative. Still, I walked away from the museum with a better understanding of why the late 19th century and early 20th century Russian government was so paranoid—it was a time of chaotic efforts to overthrow the incumbents, the government had lots of enemies, and it was trying to manage a stretched empire. I could sort of see how it became hard to distinguish friend from foe.

* Peterhof. Grade: C+. Peterhof was a huge testament to the seemingly limitless wealth of Russia’s rulers. In retrospect, it's a demonstration of royal excess. The Russian rulers weren’t satisfied with having a few palaces, so they kept building more and more. Even in Peterhof, Catherine the Great built a hermitage (translated, a “retreat”) so she could get away from the main palace, which itself was the summer vacation home from St. Petersburg. Seriously? You need a retreat from your retreat?

Further on the theme of excess, the grounds were filled with many expensive-to-maintain developments: grassy areas, sculptured gardens, and lots and lots of fountains. If you’re the ruler of Russia, how much time are you going to have to enjoy the bottom dozen least-interesting fountains at your summer home? I did like some of the whimsy on display in the fountains, such as the trick fountains and the dragons at a fountaintop.

It's always funny to see the 18th and 19th century concept of “nature,” fully on display here. Nature was something to be managed, not to be left in its original state. Viewed from the modern perspective, Peterhof would have benefited if more land remained undeveloped and the attractions were consolidated more closely together.

Much of the property has been nicely renovated after Nazi Germany looted and ransacked the place, but clearly it’s a work-in-progress—especially when compared with places like the Church on Spilled Blood, which is positively gleaming after its comprehensive renovation.

I lowered Peterhof’s grade due to the oppressiveness of the multitudinous pay-as-you-go options. They really need to provide an all-you-can-eat option to enjoy everything at Peterhof, rather than nickel-and-diming people at many different minor attractions (which each required at least 2 people, the ticket seller and ticket-taker—another example of the overstaffing problem).

I also lowered the grade because different attractions were open and closed on different days. If you really wanted to enjoy everything, you have to select your visit day carefully. As it turned out, the Grand Palace was closed on Mondays, the day I went. I probably couldn’t have rescheduled, but still, it pays to research the options in advance.

I also couldn’t tell if my ticket to the Lower Garden allowed me to exit, go to the Upper Gardens (and pay more), and then reenter the Lower Gardens so I could get back to the hydrofoil at the dock without paying another entrance fee. The ticket probably told me, but it was in Russian, and English-speaking help seemed scarcer here than in St. Petersburg. In all, I was a little baffled trying to navigate everything.

Despite all this, I enjoyed walking around the Lower Gardens. The Grand Cascade was a sight to behold, even after the Vegas casinos have tried surpassing it nearly 3 centuries later. Even some of the lesser-celebrated fountains, such as the pyramid fountain and the Roman fountain, impressed me greatly. I also just liked walking around the less developed parts and seeing a bit of (cultivated) Russian landscapes. The views across the Gulf of Finland were nice, although I’m sure it would be nicer on one of the rare sunny days.

I took the hydrofoil to Peterhof from the dock right in front of the Hermitage. This was a nice way to see the city from the water and was a quick (35 minutes) and convenient way to get back and forth. However, it was an expensive option—800 rubles (nearly $30) for the round-trip—and if you can’t exit and reenter the Lower Gardens for one fee, then taking the hydrofoil further limits your options. Considering the total costs, I’m not sure the trip was a great value. Some friends recommended Pushkin, a different summer royal retreat, as an alternative. Its highlight—a room covered completely by amber, even though it was recreated after Nazis looted the original—sounds mighty nifty.

* Hotel. Grade: C-. I stayed four nights in the Park Inn Pribaltiyskaya on the west end of Vasilyevskiy Island. Unless you have some reason to be out in the sticks, I cannot recommend this hotel. I stayed there because the conference arranged it and then generously covered my entire stay. I was happy to accept a poorly located hotel for this tradeoff.

The hotel ranks itself “four stars” by Russian standards, but this would be more like a 2.5 star business hotel in the US. The accommodations were clean enough, but the furnishings were dated. There was no free wi-fi, and the breakfast was average for vegetarians (in fairness, there were several hot entrees, just none I would touch). The hotel doesn’t provide shampoo conditioner or soap bars, and with just one soap dispenser by the sink, taking a shower involves lots of stepping out to get soap. The room size was large by European standards.

However, my real gripes were two-fold. First, I was on the entrance side of the hotel, so my room was very noisy from people talking loudly to each other while smoking outside the entrance door and buses idling in the motorway. Melatonin and noise-canceling headphones ameliorated the problem substantially.

Second, and more seriously, getting to the “cool” stuff in the city center took time (and, depending on how you go, money). The nearest metro station was a 20+ minute walk, so even a trip to Nevsky Prospeckt (2 metro stops away) took 40+ minutes. Depending on where I had to walk from there, it could easily take close to an hour to get to my destination via the metro. Driving might be quicker, but that depended on sometimes-gnarly traffic and, of course, dealing with the taxis looking to fleece American tourists. Furthermore, there were virtually no other support services, such as restaurants or other retail stores, adjacent to the hotel. Finally, the hotel basically doubled its price during the conference I attended, making it a grossly overpriced option during that time.

Two of my American colleagues stayed at the W hotel instead, perfectly located right in the heart of things between the Hermitage and St. Isaacs Cathedral. Now THAT is a nice hotel!!! However, I believe the W cost 6x my room’s rate, so it’s hard to say the W is a better value.

The parents are divorced, and mom has custody of the kids. The dad is now trying to obtain custody. There is some mildly amusing discussion about which parent is the bigger pothead, but the focus of this post is the family's use of MySpace. The dad makes two allegations: (1) the kids are posting inappropriate things, thus evidencing mom's lack of adequate supervision, and (2) mom is saying not-nice things about dad on her MySpace page, which the kids are likely to see, and in private MySpace messages. With respect to #1, the court summarizes:

The images to which Gillum objected included pictures of the thirteen-year-old daughter kissing one of her girlfriends on the cheek and pictures of the fifteen-year-old wearing a bikini and cowboy hat at the beach. The pictures of the younger daughter and her friend included the daughter's captions such as "sexii" and "kisses;" the pictures of the older daughter included her captions such as "one sexii cowgirl" and "im the hottest cowgirl you've ever seen." Gillum contends that Davies' failure to object to the girls' posting of such pictures or her ignorance of this fact shows that she was not adequately supervising the children's Internet usage and that she was "in denial that child predators exist."

The dad's argument failed to sway the trial court, and the appellate court didn't see any reason to overrule the trial court:

Although the wisdom of allowing Internet posts of a bikini-clad girl or of young girls kissing is certainly problematic, Gillum's characterization of the photographs as "sexually exploitive" is also debatable. The magistrate and trial court, as is unfortunately often the situation, had to weigh this and other conflicting evidence. Viewing the evidence as a whole, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding (implicitly) that the danger posed by such postings and Davies' knowledge of or failure to prevent such postings did not demonstrate that a change of custody was in the children's best interest.

My eldest is only 8 years old and has shown zero interest in social networking sites so far. I'm sure that will change soon enough. For now, I haven't had the personal experience of trying to manage my teenagers' use of social networking sites. However, I don't look forward to those days, because everyone who has had first-hand experience has told me it's effectively impossible. (As a separate matter, I had thought 13 year olds weren't allowed on MySpace, although we know social networking sites' efforts to screen out young teens have failed miserably).

Therefore, it would be odd, indeed, if a parent's inability to control a child's social networking site activity became a grounds for switching custody, because it's probable that neither parent can do better than the other at controlling kids' online behavior. While I can't say I would be excited if my kids did the things described in this court opinion, on the scale of good-to-bad teen usage of social networking sites, these kids look like they are doing OK, all things considered.

Meanwhile, if anyone has developed the elixir for causing teens to make adult choices when given the very adult publishing power of social networking sites, I'll pay a lot for a bottle. Or two.

I just wanted to follow up with you about alternatives to the In-N-Out field trip. Since both the field trip & our decision to pull Jacob was kind of last minute, I didn't have much time to research alternatives. I ended up taking Jacob out for breakfast at Hobee's & while there, discussing the cost of his entree & what went into that. We discussed the expenses restaurants incur (cooks, servers, rent, utilities, etc.); we also touched on the differences between "fast food" restaurants & other types of restaurants as well as regular vs. organic. Then we made notes about the ingredients used in his entree. From there we went over to Trader Joe's and priced out those ingredients (going through the store with a notepad & pen, noting prices, quantities & serving sizes - we didn't actually purchase anything). Then, we came home and calculated the total price, and then did a lot of division to calculate the price of one serving. (BTW, the $8.50 Florentine Scramble at Hobee's can be made at home for $2.83, and that's with about 50% organic ingredients to boot! :-))

The same morning Jacob's class went to In-N-Out, our daughter's class went to Hidden Villa Farm where they saw how crops are raised, eggs are harvested, goats milked & pigs born. I thought that was a nice view into "where food comes from," and since HV also sells commercially, they can also discuss/show how they choose what to produce, how they package, transport, market & price it, etc.

If I'd had more time, I would have looked into possible "behind the scenes" tours from places like Whole Foods Market, the local Farmers Markets, Trader Joe's and other local farms. If you would like me to research these sorts of options further, please let me know.
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Lisa's alternative excursion made quite an impression on Jacob. He became especially interested in organic foods, but the cost accounting also seems to have made an impact. Lisa also told me that several people at Hobee's and Trader Joe's overheard her talking to Jacob and gave her unsolicited compliments for her efforts.

In terms of alternatives, I think a visit to Hobee's is a little better educationally than a visit to In-and-Out Burger, but I think both of them are inferior to a trip to where students could get multiple vendor perspectives, such as a farmer's market. I think it would be really neat to hear different farmers at a farmer's market explain why they think their product is superior to their competition and why it's financially advantageous for farmers to sell their product via a farmer's market as opposed to other distribution options. My guess is that the students would never look at Safeway's the same after hearing that.