Speeding along State Road 120 from Sacramento, with Yosemite National Park just a handful of miles down the road, it’s quite easy to zip right past an oasis of history dating back to when gold was the currency and justice was swift.

Ripe with an abundance of other pre-park activities including hiking, fishing, whitewater rafting, kayaking, gold panning and so on, Groveland, a town of about 3,300 year-round residents, is ideally located for folks headed to explore Yosemite’s grandeur. For those who want simply to relax in the midst of history, the Groveland Hotel awaits. It’s a small, two-story hotel with just 17 rooms and a friendly, resident cat. And it has its rewards. One of them is genuine Southern hospitality (and Southern drawls), transplanted from Tennessee and nurtured daily by co-owners and hosts Peggy and Grover Mosley.

Many people consider marijuana to be a weed, but it's actually a flowering plant. Granted, cannabis flowers look more like a cluster of plant matter than an actual blooming flower, but they're just as beautiful! Nearly all flowering plants have a similar structure, and they form buds and flowers to attract insects that spread their pollen. Thanks to the similarities, I love flowers almost as much as I love cannabis! In my opinion, every marijuana connoisseur should appreciate flowers of all kinds, and there's no better place for a flower-child to visit than the gorgeous Flower Fields of Carlsbad!

LA’s Newest Art Museum and Icon

It’s generally an undisputed fact that the Hollywood Sign is the biggest icon or landmark in Los Angeles. The Griffith Observatory, City Hall, the Disney Concert Hall and the Getty Museum are other architectural icons also looming large. Tour books usually overlook the city’s eastside but it also has architectural icons such as the sculpted concrete bridges over the Los Angeles River, the vintage art deco Sears Tower on Olympic, the band shell at Mariachi Plaza and the Los Angeles County USC Hospital.