San Diego's Weekend Driver

Here’s an email from reader Bryan: I just bought a 2012 Ford F-150 XLT SuperCrew 4X2 with EcoBoost and I would like to take it out and venture off the “Path”.  Can you recommend some articles or trips you have taken where the terrain was more rugged, but 4X4 was not a must. I have [...]

Be sure to pick up a copy of UT San Diego (the San Diego Union-Tribune) on Saturday for the next Weekend Driver column, Train Stop to History, in the Wheels section. It’s a great day trip out to an old railroad station in the middle of the desert, a place where folks taking the San [...]

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 [...]

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.

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 [...]

Rocky trail cuts through west corner of state park Generally, I do a bit of research before heading out on one of these drives. I break out the maps, check the web and have a general idea of the roads I’m looking to experience. But for this trip, I decided to do what most folks [...]

Rocky Road Pushes Grocery-Getter SUV To The Limit From January 2008 The Rocky Mountains are in Colorado, but for rocky mountains, nothing beats the piles of pink boulders in the southeastern corner of San Diego County. Looming in drivers’ windshields as they head towards the Imperial Valley, Interstate 8 winds through them. First comes Walker [...]

Green SUV Up To Task On Easy Anza-Borrego Roads From December 2006 Coyote Canyon, in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, has enough history to fill a book. It’s the stuff of controversy, human civilization, geology, plant and animal life, and convenience. It’s also a good place for city-dwelling desert newbies to get a little off-road [...]

A beautiful place with no name in Anza-Borrego Desert Note: I took this trip in March, 2005. Be sure to check with the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park ranger for current road conditions. Canyon Sin Nombre video ne thing about a year with heavy rains in San Diego… it means the desert to the east comes [...]

Sand, Dust and Splinters Didn’t Challenge Imperial Valley’s Earliest Drivers On a sunny Sunday a few weeks ago, I set out to visit the remnants of the Old Plank Road, the first “reliable” connection across the Algodones Dunes near the Colorado River in Imperial County.