Weekend Driver San Diego

It’s only about four miles from off what might be the loneliest highway in San Diego County, highway S-2, but it sends visitors back almost a century. Out in the middle of the desert, at the south end of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, is a reminder of just how far transportation has come since [...]

Ramona is one of the special places in San Diego county. Not just because the low-mountain scenery provides great vistas around every corner, but its bucolic roots and surrounding terrain make for great road and wonderful day trip. Our route this time takes us over the county’s newest and technologically advanced freeways and some of [...]

Legendary is a label that applies to many roads, none more than the drive we’re taking this week, the route through the Santiago and Trabuco canyons in Orange County. Generations of bikers have left the beaten track in The OC for these twisty wonders; just minutes from the nearest master-planned community, yet so rural, so [...]

It’s hard to believe, but even in San Diego the weather can interfere with the best plans. With a 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee parked out front and a weekend plan to head up Nate Harrison Grade on Mount Palomar (and a Plan B to do some driving on rocks near Jacumba), our local dirt roads [...]

Just before hitting the state line with Arizona is one of the more spectacular features in California, the Algodones Dunes. Traversing the eastern edge of the dunes is one of the more lonely highways around, Ogilby Road, a great cruise whether you’re on a Harley, in a classic car or modern SUV.

Today we’re in search of lakes — north, south and east. I assume you can find the big lake to the west. For a region known for its beaches, San Diego county has too many lakes to count. The City of San Diego alone operates 10 lakes, reservoirs for our drinking water; water districts generally [...]

So what’s your dream drive? Cruising the coast in a hot Corvette? Well, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of this column, GM was nice enough to satisfy my itch to drive a Corvette — in this case the hot new Grand Sport convertible — and so of course I had to take it down the [...]

It’s been a wet winter, which means our local desert is ready for a show. And for all of you with all-wheel-drive SUVs, its time to exercise those transfer cases. Spring in the desert, especially in rainy years such as this one, means the usual grays and reds of the sand and hills are accented [...]

Ford’s Commemorative Pony Car on Hills Steve McQueen Would Have Loved Originally published in October 2008 Go back a century and a new community, Mission Hills, sprouts north of downtown San Diego. Automobiles are The Next Big Thing and early adopters — just the kind of upscale clientele building homes in Mission Hills — were [...]

Fields of green and gold, babbling brooks aside winding paved roads, damp dirt trails and streams crossing dirt roads. It must be spring in San Diego’s mountains. Arguably the area with the most variety surrounds Lake Henshaw and Warner Springs, in the extreme northeastern corner of San Diego county.