Weekend Driver San Diego

Well, this one is way out of town… it’s at the other end of the country, at least for us here in San Diego. And it’s not the east coast, it’s the northern border: A trip around Washington State in a great road car, the Lincoln MKT sport-utility. Hard to believe it’s been a year [...]

What are your top five twisty roads in San Diego County? On my list is the drive for this weekend, Highland Valley Road, the subject of High on Highland. Hairpins? It’s got ‘em. Blind curves? Danger? Steep grades? Narrow lanes? They’re all on Highland Valley Road between Rancho Bernardo and Ramona. Enjoy this trip that [...]

The lost city of Petra, Jordan, is a long way from San Diego. This faraway place, where the final scenes of the 1989 movie “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” were shot, came to mind in a trip to Split Mountain, in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. The spectacular Petra gorge, where Indiana, his father [...]

Here’s a horrible choice… whether to take this Saturday’s brand new Weekend Driver in the UT San Diego or a classic drive from 2006? Well, that depends on a few things. Plenty of time? Head to the desert, where Saturday’s drive hits the sand, in search of the remains of an old railroad station in [...]

Here’s a really fun trip over some little-known roads in San Diego County… but isn’t that what Weekend Driver is all about? It’s East County Zig-Zag, a loop around the East County communities of Lake Morena, Campo, Cameron Corners, La Posta, Live Oak Springs and Boulevard, plus the Campo Indian Reservation. If you stay on [...]

If you’re looking for something close-in this weekend, how about a cruise down El Cajon Boulevard, what one perhaps too-dreamy city planner once called the “Champs Elysees of San Diego.” The wide, mostly straight boulevard runs from Normal Street and Park Boulevard east to Main Street in El Cajon, with a bit of an interruption [...]

Back in January 2009, I took a Nissan Exterra on a wonderful drive through Grapevine Canyon in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. It was a freeform day… I had no idea where I was headed except to the desert. After a stop in the park’s visitor center, the suggestion was Grapevine Canyon, which runs from [...]

Hard to believe, but because of the shifting sands, the first permanent road across the eastern part of the Imperial Valley was made from planks. And on a breezy day a few years back, I went looking for it, then retraced its replacement, what became US 80, back across the desert. It’s a bit of [...]

It’s a bit out of town, but some folks have the Christmas weeks off and can fly out of town. This is my blog entry from the first day on the Natchez Trace, a 400-plus mile long National Park that winds from Nashville to Natchez, Miss. I took the drive a few years ago and [...]

Here’s a golden oldie… the fourth Weekend Driver column ever, from way back in 2001, with an update in 2003. It’s Valley of Contrasts, the Tijuana River Estuary. It’s also one of the few chapters from my book, Weekend Driver San Diego, that have been posted online. It was a tease, if you will, to [...]