The seaside community of Laguna is one our states most beautiful destinations. On this adventure, Huell gets to see the Laguna that the locals know and love. Huell starts the day with a famous date shake at the Orange Inn and then it's off to the Laguna Art Museum to learn about why so many artists have flocked to Laguna since the very beginning. We'll visit the Pacific Marine Mammal Center to see how they rescue and return sea mammals to the wild. Huell enjoyed a drink at Las Brisas Mexican Restaurant and explored the tide pools as well. What do a brilliant field of marigolds, an ostrich farm, thousands of cacti and a two-story outhouse have in common?
The answer is that they are all accidental discoveries made by producer/host Huell Howser as he traveled the state in search of California's Gold. 'As we drive down the highways of our state we're always seeing things that surprise and amaze us,' says Huell. 'This entire episode is made up of people, places and things we came across quite by accident as we were heading for a planned shooting location.' 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.
Lyrics to Cigarettes, Wedding Bands by Band of Horses from the Cease to Begin album. Band of Horses' fourth studio album, Mirage Rock, was released in.
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. Our Golden State is full of many of unique things, and those of you who have been to San Fransisco have noticed huge ponds filled with water that ranges in color from deep red to light pink. We decided that we just had to get to the bottom of this California Mystery. When we finally arrived at the 'ponds' we found one of California's most unique agricultures.
Salt and brine shrimp are what is responsible for our crimson ponds. 300,000 tons of salt a year to be exact. Salt has been harvested from these ponds since the Gold Rush and has been a very important part of our states history. For 50 years one of the most popular ways to travel up and down the mighty Mississippi River has been aboard the authentic paddlewheel steamboat Delta Queen. To ride on this boat is to step back in time - in fact, the Delta Queen has been declared a National Historic Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. But true riverboat buffs will tell you that the Delta Queen was not originally built to travel on the Mississippi River. It's a California boat, built in Stockton in the late 1920's for service on the Sacramento River.
It started back in 1921 and quickly became one of California's biggest and 'sweetest' success stories. The little shop on Western Avenue featured the favorite candy recipes of Mary See and focused on farm-fresh ingredients and homemade goodness. Before long this little shop had grown into a chain of stores serving loyal customers, and See's Candies had become famous around the world. In this calorie-laden edition of 'California's Gold,' host Huell Howser gets a first hand taste of the See's story.
Imagine driving through Lompoc in the early 1940's and coming across a huge 12 acre American flag made up of red, white and blue flowers. That's just what people saw every spring for several years and it was a remarkable sight.
In 1942 the good folks at Bodger Seeds in Lompoc decided they could do something really spectacular to support the war effort. A 12 acre flower flag was their way of saying thanks to all the Americans who were fighting the good fight. The company planted ' flags' in 1942, '43, '45 and 1952.
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.
Surfing has played a major role in the 'California' lifestyle and has a rich and colorful history up and down our coast. One of the most famous and historic is San Onofre Beach in San Diego County. Surfing got it's start in Polynesia over three thousand years ago and Hawaiian's have been riding waves for over one thousand. Surfing arrived in California in 1907 and has been a passion of Californians ever since. Many of our states early surfing pioneers cut their chops on the famous waves at San Onofre Beach. Huell travels to the mountains above Fresno to tour 'Big Creek' which was America's first large-scale integrated hydroelectric project, begun in 1911. This massive engineering marvel consists of 23 generating units in nine powerhouses with a generating capacity of approximately 1,000 megawatts, and six major reservoirs with a storage capacity of more than 560,000 acre-feet.
Not only do we get a behind the scenes tour, we'll also meet and hear some great stories from a one of the first families that worked at this remote Edison outpost. Originally just south of the Santa Monica Pier in California, this small plot of 'sand' was one of the most famous addresses in the United States from 1934 to 1959. Muscle Beach started as a WPA project in 1934 and helped spawn the modern fitness movement that lives on today.
In the beginning it wasn't about muscles, it was about fitness and fun. Men and women did somersaults and handstands, built human towers and threw each other around. Huell and Luis go back to the original plot of sand to visit with some of the men and women who made Muscle Beach their playground during its heyday.
The San Diego & Arizona Railway has been called 'the impossible railroad'. They broke ground in 1907 and completed the line in 1919. Between San Diego and Arizona is some of the most treacherous countryside in the U.S. With a bevy of workman and a lot of dynamite they managed to snake their way to Arizona.
The railroad had many tunnels collapse over the years, especially in the Carrizo Gorge. The railroad decided to build the Goat Canyon Trestle in 1932 after a series of tunnel closures. The Goat Canyon Trestle is one of the most impressive feats of engineering in the world.
Napa valley has become one of California's main tourist attractions. Thousands of people flock to the area for wine tasting and vineyard tours every year.
What most people don't realize is that California's rich wine history got it's start in southern California. In this grape filled adventure, Huell travels to one of the oldest winery's in California. The Guasti family established their winery in 1904 and at one time had 4000 acres of grapes in the Rancho Cucamonga area. A virtual town was built to house the employees and their families. Catalina has been famous for many things over the years, Glass BottomBoats, Buffalo and the Casino to name a few. But one of the strangest and most popular attractions has been the Flying Fish Boat Trip which has been transporting visitors on nighttime journeys to watch Catalina's flying fish since the turn of the century.
In 1924 William Wrigley decided to build a boat just for Flying Fish Tours. The Blanche W. Is a 64-foot long open-deck wooden boat named after Wrigley's granddaughter Blanche. 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. First stop is Giant Rock -considered to be the worlds largest free standing boulder, and a long time sacred site to the Native Americans. In the 1950s it became a UFO airport according to George Van Tassel who claimed to be contacted by aliens there, and was host to UFO conventions till the late 70s. One of the things George was told to do by the aliens was to build the Integratron, which is our next stop. This amazing building/machine is supposed to restore youth, although never completed-Huell will get a 'sound bath.'
Hold onto your seats, this will be a wild ride. 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. Travel with Huell to Sequoia National Forest to visit historic Buck Rock Fire Lookout. Established in the early 1900s, Buck Rock Lookout was one of the first fire detection locations in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The current lookout building, constructed in 1923, is historically significant as a representation of the earliest live-in towers in California. Huell climbs 172 stairs to an elevation of 8, 500 feet to interview the woman who currently staffs the lookout through the fire season, and to learn what it's like to live perched on the edge of a cliff!
In this muddy adventure, Huell travels to some very remote areas to take an up close and personal look at 'mudpots'. Mudpots only occur three places in the US and one of them is right here in California.
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Our first stop is the Imperial Wildlife Area. Huell and a member of the Fish and Game take a look at huge mounds of bubbling, oozing, popping and exploding mudpots. This is a public are that is open to mud lovers one and all. Next its off to some privately owned land which has some extraordinary mudpots. California and China have had a long and storied connection, the most well known is the Chinese laborers who helped build the California railroads. But on this adventure, Huell finds a few lesser-known examples of California's and China's Gold.
A brief stop at the Golden State Bonsai Collection-North in Oakland introduces us to the Bonsai tree given to Chinese Envoy Anson Burlingame of the Lincoln Presidency. Burlingame opened China to the U.S. In the 1860s, and this souvenir from his tenure has been in the U.S. As we all know, California has some spectacular scenery and our great variety of trees makes up a large part of it.
In this adventure, Huell visits three 'big' trees that are a great example of California's Gold. First Huell travels to Santa Barbara to see the Moreton Bay Fig Tree. Given to a little girl as a gift from an Australian seaman, the sapling was planted in 1876.
That little sapling is now the largest Moreton Bay Fig in the continental U.S. The tree is 42 feet around its base, 80 feet tall and has a branch spread of 176 feet. Huell travels to the Eastern Sierra's in search of a good place to have a soak. Hot Creek Geological Site is nestled in the Inyo National Forest close to the town of Mammoth Lakes. We take a ride out to the site with Debbie Nelson who is a Recreation Specialist for the forest. Huell gets a first hand look at this beautiful spot with water boiling up from the ground which mixes with the cool water of Hot Creek and makes for some very nice swimming. We'll even meet some die-hard soakers who come from all over California to enjoy the therapeutic water.
San Francisco is a city of many distinctions, but few are as intriguing as the history of its cemeteries. As the 19th century came to a close in San Francisco, a movement some say a real estate scheme began to remove all buried remains from within the city. After many ordinances, acts and decrees, cemeteries were carefully relocated to nearby towns, while headstones were recycled as breakwaters and paving material. Only three cemeteries and their inhabitants were left within the boundaries of San Francisco.