San Diego's Weekend Driver

In the desert east of San Diego is a desert canyon that looks like something from another continent and time. It’s Split Mountain and Fish Creek, our trip for this weekend. Back in 2004, I really enjoyed this mostly sandy drive. It even reminded me of scenes from one of the Indiana Jones movies. Enjoy [...]

Go back a century and a long auto trip meant stopping frequently for more than just snacks or gas. Cars needed sometimes hourly maintenance to fill the radiator, change tires and add oil. Along the two-lane highways of the day, garages sprang up every few miles. Later, entrepreneurs built roadside attractions. Most survived into the [...]

Rain or shine, here’s a great mountain trip for this weekend. It’s an oldie but a goodie, La Posta Loop from January 2003. Head out east on I-8, exiting at Buckman Springs. From there, you’ll head south to find a beautiful and historic lake, twisting roads worthy of any sports sedan you might own or [...]

Well, spring break is over and we’re all on that last push before summer begins. If you’re already planning a trip for the summer, consider this one… the Natchez Trace, 400-plus miles from Nashville to Natchez, Miss. I took this a few years ago, so enjoy my blog postings for this week’s Weekend Trip.

Here’s a collection of destinations… make it three or four trips or one day to lakes around San Diego county. Our reservoirs are important as they hold our drinking water, whether imported or from what rarely falls from the skies. They’re open for a picnic, fishing, boating or just hanging out. Because of our rugged [...]

It’s one of my favorite movies and favorite drives. Back in 1963, it seems every old comedian got together with Spencer Tracy, Ethel Merman and director Stanley Kramer for It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, a 153-minute romp around the Southern California countryside. And where the movie starts, where Jimmy Durante goes flying off [...]

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 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 [...]

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 [...]