Photos: 52 weekend getaways: a year’s worth of escapes

No one seems to know exactly when Millard Campground was converted from a day-use-only picnic spot near a nice waterfall into L.A.’s most convenient place to snore in the woods. Or, for that matter, if and when it might be converted back.

But on any given Saturday, it’s clear that word has spread about this quick ‘n’ easy overnight retreat -- the closest place to the city in Angeles National Forest to park, pitch a tent, put up a hammock, plunk a hot dog on a stick and pretend for a starry night or two that Los Angeles (a stone’s throw away) doesn’t exist.

-- Jordan Rane

Read more: Adventure on the urban edge at Millard Campground near Pasadena

Planning your trip:

Millard Campground is at the foot of Angeles National Forest just north of Altadena. From the 210 Freeway in Pasadena, exit at Lake Avenue and drive north about 3 1/2 miles to Loma Alta Drive. Turn left and drive a mile to Chaney Trail (at the flashing yellow light). Turn right and continue about 1 1/2 miles through the park gates to the campground/trail head parking lot. Follow the fire road about 100 yards to the campground.

Whenever some local volunteer at a magnificent state park tucked away on California‘s Central Coast waxes on about mountain lions, bobcats and rattlesnakes to a couple of wide-eyed Angelenos, you can be pretty sure of two things.

First, probably nothing more predatory than a turkey vulture will be encountered over the next 48 hours. Second, what may actually be going on (at least unconsciously) during this warmly grave reception is an attempt at crowd control.

Welcome to Montaña de Oro State Park. Please don’t tell all your friends about us.

-- Jordan Rane

Read more: Camping at Montaña de Oro State Park in California

Planning your trip:

Montaña de Oro State Park, (805) 528-0513, www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=592. Make campsite reservations through California State Parks Reservation Center, (800) 444-7275, www.parks.ca.gov.

The desert is a master of disguise, portraying itself as a lifeless wasteland, devoid of color and sound. It’s just the opposite. Among those billions of grains of sand are countless hibernating seeds just waiting for a dose of rain and sun to spring to life, triggering a riot of swaying flowers, buzzing bees, flapping birds, howling coyotes and hopping hares.

-- Hugo Martín

Read more: Wild about Anza-Borrego’s desert wildflowers

Planning your trip:

Anza-Borrego Visitor Center, 200 Palm Canyon Drive, Borrego Springs, (760) 767-5311, www.parks.ca.gov/

I’d seen Lake Tahoe only in winter, its shores under deep snow. So, on Day 1 of my first warm-weather trip around the lake last month, I couldn’t stop prowling the water’s edge, scanning for new hues of blue. On Day 2, I rock-hopped and rented a bike. On Day 3, I hiked above Emerald Bay into the mist of Eagle Falls.

So how, on Day 4, did I wind up in man-made subterranean blackness, stranded in a narrow stone tunnel somewhere between a dead playboy’s boathouse and his opium den?

-- Christopher Reynolds

Read more: Getting to know Lake Tahoe’s warmer side

Planning your trip:

Lake Tahoe Visitors Bureaus (south and north), www.visitinglaketahoe.com.

Like thousands of travelers who visit the Gila Wilderness annually, I had come to see the hardscrabble patch of New Mexico that became the model for every protected wilderness in the country. I came to explore the same rocky trails cut by the Apache warrior Geronimo, homesteaders and gun-packing fugitives. But most of all, I wanted to see whether America’s first wilderness area -- protected 84 years ago from roads, cars and other modern intrusions -- was still as pristine and untamed as Leopold had intended.

Surrounded by towering canyon walls and clawing tree branches, I could see that Leopold’s vision for this land prevailed; it was beautiful, wild -- and even a bit scary.

-- Hugo Martín

Read more: Gila Wilderness in southwestern New Mexico is the untamed West

Planning your trip:

Visit www.fs.fed.us/r3/gila; for more on the cliff dwellings, go to www.nps.gov/gicl.

At age 101, it’s a wonder that Old Edna is still standing upright. But there she is, along California 227 south of San Luis Obispo, encouraging passing motorists to stop and say “hello.”

She had some hard years -- especially during World War II -- and they took their toll. Edna turned dull gray. Clearly weather-beaten, she developed rusty-brown splotches that, untreated, grew ever larger.

“I could not see my sweet girl mistreated,” says Pattea Torrence, an area resident who had been a frequent visitor for decades. “[She] deserved some attention -- a bit of cosmetic surgery, you might say -- a much-needed bit of lipstick in order for her to stand tall again and greet the passersby.”

-- Jay Jones

Read more: Old Edna’s kicking up her heels again

Planning your trip:

The Edna Valley B&B, 1655 Old Price Canyon Road, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401, www.oldedna.com/

The stark landscape looms large here: miles of open land pockmarked by desert scrub; jumbled rocks heaped upon one another to create wild mountains; cantankerous cactuses ready to hurl daggers if you come too close.

Landscapes don’t come much more ruggedly Western than this.

So it’s not surprising to find restaurants that feature an Old West menu. More than a dozen years ago -- the first time I visited -- I dined on fried rattlesnake (chewy), cattle-drive stew (greasy) and Cactus Sam’s enchiladas (with Velveeta in a starring role).

But much has happened on the food scene in the intervening years. Phoenix and Scottsdale chefs have worked hard to downplay the chuck wagon-chow image.

-- Rosemary McClure

Read more: 10 restaurants to sample in Phoenix and Scottsdale

The Ferry Building, that long, tall landmark where Market Street meets the Embarcadero, is where they brought the injured after the great San Francisco quake of 1906. It’s the hub that drew as many as 50,000 commuters daily across the bay before there were any big bridges here, then sent them back across the water at day’s end. It’s the monument that a freeway amputated from the rest of the city in the 1950s, its clock tower left to jut into the fog like a forgotten gravestone.

Now it lives to make people hungry.

-- Christopher Reynolds

Read more: San Francisco Ferry Building a waterfront foodie heaven

Planning your trip:

Ferry Building Marketplace, One Ferry Building, San Francisco, California 94111, (415) 983-8000, www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com

It’s a prime location. Although I never noticed it in three decades of breezing past on the Pacific Coast Highway, Newport Dunes lies just a block from PCH and Jamboree Road, so close to the shops of Fashion Island you can almost hear them tearing down the Circuit City sign and (keep hope alive!) putting up the new Nordstrom. Generations of locals know Newport Dunes for the fake whale that floats in its lagoon every summer and the fireworks it sends up every Fourth of July.

But for my little family of three, this was an unknown quantity -- not a hotel or condo or rental house, not camping, not a rustic cabin. The resort has its own marina; a little dock; a playground; an upscale restaurant with retractable roof (the Back Bay Bistro); a general store that rents golf carts, Segways and bicycles; and best of all, its own little lagoon, with tiny bay waves lapping at its own crescent of sand, the scene punctuated by meandering ducks, gulls and shore birds. Even after rates rise for summer, it’s easy to see the lure of a few lazy days here.

-- Christopher Reynolds

Read more: Newport Beach for kind of cheap family lodging

Planning your trip:

1131 Back Bay Drive, Newport Beach, CA 92660; (949) 729-3863, www.newportdunes.com.

“It’s cheaper than going to Africa, I’ll say that,”” Christine said as she scanned a rolling savanna where giraffes, gazelles and elephants ambled within a few dozen yards of a tent she shared with her husband, Jim.

For the Claremont couple and more than 50 other safari wannabes like me who spent a chilly Saturday night in March at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park, the aptly named Roar & Snore camp out was also enlightening, fun and a little eerie. But not necessarily restful.

-- Jane Engle

Read more: San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park offers overnight camping near wildlife

Planning your trip:

San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park, (800) 407-9534, www.sandiegozoo.org.”

Dawn is coming soon. The lights are off, the sound system silent and the beasts of the Monterey Bay Aquarium have the place mostly to themselves: the otters, the anemones, the octopuses, the great white shark in the big tank, the lame young albatross in its rooftop cage -- and Kacey Kurimura, who’s at the kitchen sink in her apron and waterproof boots, reaching for a knife.

Maybe the sea never sleeps, but this is how the day begins at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Before this one is over, 2,881 visitors will troop through, that young shark will fill up on a mere 3 1/2 pounds of fish, the albatross will dance with a new friend. And the jellyfish expert will get stung, which happens about three times a week.

-- Christopher Reynolds

Read more: Behind the scenes at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

Planning your trip:

The Monterey Bay Aquarium is about 320 miles (5 1/2 hours) from downtown Los Angeles to Monterey. www.montereybayaquarium.org.

Snowshoeing at Royal Gorge Cross Country Ski Resort

Today, the sport of snowshoeing is enjoying a surge of popularity, marked by a 30% spike in snowshoe sales between 2005 and 2008, according to SnowSports Industries America, a nonprofit trade group representing snow sport businesses.

So, in the middle of a late-winter storm, I traveled to this 9,000-acre winter resort near Soda Springs to see why almost 6 million Americans take part in what seems like the most leisurely of snow sports.

-- Hugo Martín

Read more: Snowshoers find their path at Royal Gorge Cross Country Ski Resort

Planning your trip:

Royal Gorge Cross Country Ski Resort is open 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Thursdays through Mondays, closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays; daily passes $25, snowshoe rentals $21; (800) 500-3871, www.royalgorge.com.

Before the face-lift, Mammoth was known for its rustic charms. It was a hodgepodge of hotels, strip malls and mom-and-pop eateries, but that didn’t bother most of the skiers and snowboarders who came only for the mountain experience. Thanks to an average of 33 feet of snow and 300 days of sunshine each year, the experience was usually good.

The resort took a transformative step in 2008 when Mammoth Mountain teamed with Patina Restaurant Group in an effort to improve its culinary offerings. To make the slopes more convenient, Horizon Air began nonstop flights from Los Angeles International Airport to the Mammoth Yosemite Airport.

-- Hugo Martín

Read more: Mammoth Lakes is new and improved, but still affordable

Planning your trip:

www.visitmammoth.com/

Santa Cruz

Three-hundred and forty-five driving miles north of Los Angeles, 72 miles south of San Francisco and many leagues to the left of Middle America, Santa Cruz calls out to newcomers like a lazy mermaid atop Monterey Bay. With tie-dyed scales.

“Dude,” this mermaid drawls. “What’s your hurry?”

What with the redwoods, the shapely waves, the historic beachfront amusement park, the barking sea lions under the old wharf and the fluttering monarch butterflies that alight here every fall, Santa Cruz has always possessed plenty to lure tourists.

-- Christopher Reynolds

Read more: Santa Cruz’s affordable luxuries

Planning your trip:

Santa Cruz County Conference and Visitors Council,
www.santacruzca.org

You road-less-traveled types may adore Catalina. During high season, between Memorial Day and Labor Day, Southern Californians flock to this overgrown rock like Bostonians to Martha’s Vineyard. Californians visit Catalina’s hilltop Wrigley Mansion (now the pleasant Inn on Mt. Ada), attend movie premieres and Kenny Loggins concerts at its landmark Casino Ballroom (where Duke Ellington once played) and take bus tours through its vast backcountry (still occupied by real buffalo herds).

These are all legacies of chewing-gum baron William Wrigley Jr., who bought the whole 76-square-mile island for a couple of million bucks sight unseen in 1919 and shaped it into his vision of an offshore hinterland and equestrian-class resort.

There’s a sunny nine-hole golf course here too (reportedly the oldest in Southern California), a triathlon and an October jazz festival. But come winter, when tourism plummets to a fraction of its fair-weather numbers, Catalina may be something closer to a secret getaway.

-- Jordan Rane

Read more: Catalina Island becomes more like a secret getaway in winter

Planning your trip:

Explore Catalina’s 42,135 acres of rugged outback the easy way, in an open-air Mercedes Unimog or a 1950s Flxible bus ([310] 510-8687, www.visitcatalinaisland.com). Hiking in the backcountry requires a permit (free) from the Catalina Island Conservancy ([310] 510-2595, www.catalinaconservancy.org).

Hotel rooms often are boring places you have to put up with just to explore some place exciting. At Nick’s Cove, a new complex on Tomales Bay an hour or so north of San Francisco, you could be perfectly happy spending most of your time just exploring the hotel rooms.

Not that you’d actually call any of these places “hotel rooms.”

A string of a dozen cabins, cottages and other assorted structures stretched alongside Highway 1 just north of the town of Point Reyes, Nick’s Cove is a kind of Ralph Lauren meets Northern California fever dream of a resort.

-- Russ Parsons

Read more: Rich trappings at Nick’s Cove on Tomales Bay

Planning your trip:

Nick’s Cove on Tomales Bay
23240 Highway 1, Marshall, Calif.
(415) 663-1033.
Cabins from $225 to $695.

Las Vegas CityCenter

The 67-acre property is full of parks and plazas lining broad boulevards in the heart of the complex. Sculptures from such world-class artists as Maya Lin (the Vietnam Veterans Memorial) and Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen add to the metropolitan mood.

-- Jay Jones

Read more: CityCenter the beginning of a new Las Vegas

Planning your trip:

Vdara
2600 W. Harmon Ave., Las Vegas,
(866) 745-7767, www.vdara.com

Aria Resort & Casino
3730 Las Vegas Blvd., Las Vegas,
(866) 359-7757, www.arialasvegas.com

Mandarin Oriental
3752 S. Las Vegas Blvd., (702) 590-8888,
www.mandarinoriental.com

It has been eight years since the casino opened, and six years since the debut of the hotel, hence the redo. The former Terrace Buffet, now called Choices, has been expanded, and two new restaurants have opened. Changes to the lobby, including new furniture, flooring and art.

Despite the tired look of my room, the 507-room resort was a real bargain. The grand suites are more than 1,000 square feet, with showers the size of small rooms, as well as powder rooms, wet bars and large living rooms. (Rates start at $290.)

-- Beverly Beyette

Read more: Pala Casino renovations pay off

Planning your trip:

Pala Casino Spa Resort
11154 California Highway 76, Pala, Calif., 92059;
(877) 946-7252, www.palacasino.com
Rates: Doubles begin at $119

dwarfs the village’s other structures and has become the scenic focal point for hundreds of thousands of snapshots. -- Rosemary McClure  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Why, you may ask, are we rushing north on Interstate 5 and veering east on California 126 into the Santa Clara Valley? Why are we pulling off the road by a fruit stand and slipping into the backyard? Are we going to tip a cow? Steal oranges?

We are not. We are here for a date with a black-haired, blue-eyed beauty named Ramona.

She is, by at least one historian’s reckoning, “the most important woman in the history of Southern California.”

-- Christopher Reynolds

Read more: On the trail of ‘Ramona’ in California

Planning your trip:

Rancho Camulos Museum 5164 E. Telegraph Road (California 126), Piru; (805) 521-1501, www.ranchocamulos.org.

Guajome County Park 2210 N. Santa Fe Ave., Vista; (760) 724-4082, www.co.san-diego.ca.us/parks.

Old Town San Diego State Historic Park; 4002 Wallace St., San Diego; (619) 220-5422, www.parks.ca.gov.

Ramona Bowl Amphitheatre 27400 Ramona Bowl Road, Hemet; (800) 645-4465.

Gold!

Those flecks, spotted in these hills above Julian in the winter of 1869, set off San Diego County’s only gold rush -- and gave birth to the mining camp that is now this picturesque mountain town 145 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

Some of the 800 prospectors who flocked to the area struck it rich -- before the boom went bust seven years later, after producing about $2 million in gold ($150 million in today’s dollars). Today, the Old West lives on in Julian, with its wooden sidewalks and 19th century brick and wood buildings.

-- Beverly Beyette

Read more: Julian mining its history with Gold Rush Days

Planning your trip:

Julian Chamber of Commerce, 2129 Main St.; (760) 765-1857, www.julianca.com.

Hearst Castle, donated to the state by the Hearst Corp. on Dec. 31, 1957, and opened to public tours six months later, remains the fanciest open house you’ll find between Los Angeles and San Francisco. It’s a living (and occasionally leaking) testament to what results when a well-traveled, art-intoxicated, house-proud rich guy ignores all common sense, keeps a patient and pliable architect busy through 28 years of design, construction, addition and revision, then leaves it all in the hands of a government agency.

-- Christopher Reynolds

Read more: Behind the scenes at Hearst Castle

Planning your trip:

Drive north on Interstate 5 or U.S. 101, then head west to California 1 northbound. About 240 miles north of Los Angeles, nine miles north of Cambria and one mile north of hotel-heavy San Simeon Village, you reach the exit for Hearst Castle.

In the face of the hard times between 1929 and 1941, including a bitter maritime strike in 1934, all sorts of strange and wonderful creations and transformations emerged in San Francisco. Murals. Bridges. Even a couple of islands.

In my single-minded mission, I made it to the first nine of these 11 Depression-era landmarks in 24 hours. As a saner, slower traveler, you could easily cover five in a weekend. Most are inexpensive or free. And you’ve probably already visited several Depression landmarks without thinking of them that way.

-- Christopher Reynolds

Read more: Exploring the Depression’s artistic legacy in San Francisco

Planning your trip:

San Francisco City Guides, (www.sfcityguides.org), an all-volunteer walking-tour organization arranges walks to about 30 city sites every month, including many ‘30s landmarks.

Yes, 1959 was a swinging year in Palm Springs. And it’s not over yet.

Thanks to legions of preservationists, entrepreneurs, publishers and design-driven travelers, the cult of Desert Modernism gets bigger and bigger, drawing all sorts of retro pilgrims to Palm Springs, including me.

Inspired by one new book about Palm Springs and another about the ‘50s, I spent three October days in the desert, all dedicated to the pursuit of news, views and fun from 1959.

Read more: A visit to 1959 Palm Springs

Planning your trip:

Palm Springs Bureau of Tourism, www.palm-springs.org.

Palm Springs Desert Resort Communities Convention and Visitors Authority, www.palmspringsusa.com.

Palm Springs Modern Committee, www.psmodcom.com.

Pictured: The Riviera Resort & Spa

I’ve never taken an antidepressant, but if the time comes, I’m hoping the effect will be like that of driving onto the Stanford campus for the first time.

As the towering palm trees march past in the raking light of a fall afternoon, the gentle declivity of a grassy oval comes into view, gamboling youths upon it and a cluster of red blossoms in the shape of an “S.”

Then you notice the first stately sandstone buildings, the glittering Memorial Church facade beyond them, a beaming undergrad gliding down an arcade on her bike. And as a gentle breeze brushes past the campus lake and golf course, you try to imagine a bitter argument between those who say these buildings are more Richardsonian Romanesque and those who insist they’re more rooted in Mission Revival.

-- Christopher Reynolds

Read more: Embraced by the ‘Stanford bubble’

Planning your trip:

Free one-hour tours begin at the front steps of Stanford’s Memorial Auditorium (Visitor Center, 551 Serra Mall, [650] 723-2560) at 11 a.m. and 3:15 p.m. More info: www.stanford.edu/dept/visitorinfo.

Berkeley, the city, is a famously liberal enclave of 102,000 people wedged into about 10 square miles just north of Oakland. Berkeley, the campus, is 1,232 acres of that, but most of the action is in the 178-acre central core, which faces San Francisco Bay from the low slopes of the Berkeley Hills.

That core area is where you find the school’s key landmarks, including the 307-foot Campanile (a.k.a. Sather Tower, which serves as a North Star to many a meandering freshman), Sproul Plaza and stodgy old South Hall, which goes back to this school’s early days in 1873.

-- Christopher Reynolds

Read more: Berkeley changes with the times

Planning your trip:

Student guides lead walking tours of the campus at 10 a.m. daily, with additional 1 p.m. tours on weekends. They last 90 minutes and end near Sather Gate. On weekdays, the tours start at 101 University Hall, 2200 University Ave., at the corner of Oxford Street, and end at Sproul Plaza. Weekend tours start at the Campanile (Sather Tower) in the center of campus. More info: (510) 642-5215, visitors.berkeley.edu.

Terranea Resort

The expansive resort is at once inviting and invigorating but not so grand that you’ll fret if your labels aren’t designer. The Spanish Mediterranean styling fits neatly into the area’s architecture; the commitment to environmental sustainability fits into the times. With free-standing villas positioned closer to the road, each painted and landscaped distinctly, the resort looks more like a housing development than a commercial enterprise.

-- Valli Herman

Read more: Terranea Resort: inviting and invigorating

Planning your trip:

Terranea Resort
6610 Palos Verdes Drive South, Rancho Palos Verdes;
(310) 265-2800, www.terranea.com.

Paris-born designer Philippe Starck’s signature touches abound in the whimsical décor of the 297-room SLS. A horse sculpture balances a lamp on its head. The 177 chairs and 20 not-so-serious chandeliers are delightfully mismatched. -- Beverly Beyette  (Lori Shepler / Los Angeles Times)

Pelican Hill aims to set itself apart in a crowded luxury field with a mix of California-casual lifestyle and exquisite service. That was my experience, anyway. When was the last time a room service waiter pointed out the tip was included? -- Beverly Beyette  (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

The 201-room Montage, a sister hotel to Montage Laguna Beach, was built to evoke Hollywood’s Golden Age. Room décor in this $200-million edifice is traditional, with dark woods and a gold and white palette. -- Beverly Beyette  (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times)

Hotels that once shunned nonhuman guests are now rolling out the grass carpet. And we’re not just talking about Motel 6, which has allowed guests to bunk with man’s best friend since its founding in 1962. -- Rosemary McClure  (Rosemary McClure / For the Times)