California State Parks purchases the NoraBella parcel for $2.415 million, adding ridged forest and creeks to California’s oldest state park.
The acquisition — the park’s first acreage addition since Little Basin in 2011 — is a strategic move in the broader Reimagining Big Basin effort born out of the 2020 CZU wildfire. Planners see NoraBella as a natural approach to rebuilding a visitor experience: space for a welcome area at Saddle Mountain, room for shuttle access that keeps parking and buildings away from the most sensitive old-growth trees, and sites for operations that let the core groves heal while still welcoming visitors. California State Parks is advancing a facilities plan, general plan amendment, and environmental review to guide rebuilding. Continue reading
I get inspired the same way I learned to write—by doing it. When I was a kid, I just wrote because nothing was standing between me and a blank page of onion-skin typing paper loaded into a Smith Corona typewriter.
I used to be a writer, and the best thing about it was that there was no expectation; I wrote, and no one expected anything. It was private work—messy drafts, late-night notes, parcels of thought I could toss out or keep without explanation. That freedom is the engine of getting better: you try things that look stupid on the page, you fail fast, and you learn what’s worth rescuing. There’s a calm in knowing nobody’s billing you for your honest mistakes.
A wet winter and early storms left enough water in the ground that wildflowers are erupting across the state.