Getting the flavor of...

The real Oz?

Coronado Island offers a welcome antidote to a common Southern California complaint, said Steve Scauzillo in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. Weekend destinations are few and far between here, so it’d be a mistake to overlook this “quiet, sophisticated” beach community just a bridge away from downtown San Diego. Coronado is actually an isthmus, not an island, but it’s supported a resort lifestyle since the majestic red-roofed Hotel del Coronado was built on its shore 125 years ago. Day-trippers regularly book Sunday brunch in the hotel’s spectacular Crown Room, but longer Coronado stays provide a chance to stroll the beaches and explore a downtown “that feels real, not forced.” At a gallery at Ferry Landing, visitors can purchase original artwork by former La Jolla resident Dr. Seuss. The town’s real star, though, is author L. Frank Baum, who wrote three of his Wizard of Oz books in a modest home a block from the ocean.

Fossil hunting on Oregon’s beaches

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The worse the winter, the more hours some Oregonians want to spend on the beach, said Joe Hansen in the Portland Oregonian. Summer might be better for ocean swims, but winter brings out the state’s rock hounds, who know that the season’s storms and powerful tides regularly dislodge fossils from layers of sandstone and unearth gravel beds that brim with agates. Even early in the season, local experts Guy DiTorrice and K.T. Myers needed only an hour on the Newport shoreline to build up a serious hoard: “fossilized bivalve shells, a small pile of jasper, some fossilized poop, and a couple of tiny agates.” They didn’t care that their finds held little monetary value. “You’re looking at 25 to 30 million years of history here,” DiTorrice said. Around a bend in the beach, two friends had come across a much richer cache of agates—proof to all four beach hounds that this year’s haul might be the best yet.