... that Hood Mountain in California has high canopy mixed oak forests, pygmy forests and expanses of rock outcrop, and also has a vulnerable plant species named for it?
... that the soldier in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph Burst of Joy reunited with his family after six years in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp?
... that Acanthomintha duttonii is an endangered wildflower that is found only in a six mile long strip on the San Francisco Peninsula?
... that artists of the Mission School, a San Francisco-based contemporary art movement, often make artworks from materials such as house paint, spray paint, correction fluid, ballpoint pens, and scrapboard?
... that Santa Rosa Creek (pictured) was the scene of an 1827 baptism of a Pomo maiden, which event led to the naming of the creek and also the city of Santa Rosa, California?
... that Sonoma Coast State Beach (pictured) is one of California's longest beaches and has rocks that have evidence of rubbing by mammoths 40,000 years ago?
... that Annadel State Park (pictured) is considered by some biologists to have some of the best preserved northern oak woodlands in western North America?

October/November 2006