The East Coasters, the Southerners, Mid-westerners or just about anyone generally regard California with the indifference of dismissal and curiosity, disdain and envy.   Residents, native and transplants alike, wear the criticisms of their state like a badge of honor.  Everyone has an opinion about The Golden State, not all favorable, but just sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, you cant ignore it. Furthermore, whats undeniable is its rich and colorful history dating back to the Spanish colonization, to the Gold Rush, the Westward Movement, the prominence of Hollywood, the War effort, the Beatnik movement, the 60s & the hippies, the high-technology boom, the dot com crash, just to name a few.

Some historians insist that California was derived from a Spanish novel that described a paradisiacal island, but regardless of the name, this westernmost state in the contiguous United States has, in recent centuries, been a bevy of activity.  If the shot heard around the world came from Boston, then the shout heard across the country came from the very first cries of theres gold in them thar hills from Sutters Mill just northeast of San Francisco.  Ever since then, theyve been coming to California in droves.  To this day, tourists do come, by the millions from neighboring states and from the world over, as if beckoned by one giant hand to personally sort out the difference between myth and reality.  And with more than 37 million people who make California their home, in-state tourism is a giant industry in itself. (continue right)

Encompassing more than 1.3 million acres; over 260 park locations; 280 miles of coastline; 625 miles of lake and river frontage; and 3,000 miles of hiking, biking, and equestrian trails, the California State Park System is larger than some states and territories.  But the sheer collective size of the system isnt the most impressive fact.

After all, the State Parks moniker is just an amorphous term for Californias effort to aggregate the stewardship of its treasures under one blue sky.  It is also the states version of the Smithsonian Museum.  Within its auspices are not only some of the states most distinctive natural anomalies, but also its steeped history and heritage, and to be sure California has an awful lot to preserve.

Of the lower 48 states, California boasts the longest coastline and stretch of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  Those two features alone are enough to catapult several of its parks to national prominence.  From Alpine country, to the high desert and down to the rugged shores battered by the Pacific Ocean, the reach of the State Park System also includes a railroad museum, William Randolph Hearsts castle, and several Spanish missions and a litany of historical landmarks. (continue right)

The campgrounds are attractive enough, with enough pleasantries to please the worst critic, but when you consider that these campgrounds are snugly positioned, kin to showcase features such as the dark blue depths of Lake Tahoe, the sky-reaching redwoods at Big Basin, the wind-blown sand dune beaches in Pismo, the signature rugged coast of Bodega Bay or the ostentatious Hearst Castle at San Simeon among others, all of a sudden it isnt just camping anymore, but rather; an epiphany.

From camping to hiking, swimming to rock climbing, sightseeing to visiting historic museums, and most anything to your hearts content, California State Parks offers the most varied opportunity for human participation.  Most activities at California State Parks are experienced by visitors who come for the day.   As the evening approaches, the picnickers, gawkers and motor vehicle sightseers drive off into the sunset, leaving the campers to their well deserved solitude and a fleeting claim to a precious moment of California nightfall in one of its natural treasures. (continue right)

In Its Natural State:  The Real California

by Ray Santiago

It is widely believed that when they shook the nation and turned it on its side, all the loose screws bolted and the nuts ended up in California.  It is a bastion for the crazies who push the envelope in every discipline, contriving new ways of conducting life because Yoga is now mainstream, devising another way of inducing a thrill from extreme sports because kite surfing is growing old, and concocting yet another way of blending mango in daily cuisines to provoke the palate just because.  It is a land of irony and extremes, populated by men, women and those who fall in between, who dream of the unthinkable, achieve the improbable, and judiciously fail just so they can do it all over again in certain pursuits of success.  California is safe harbor for those who dont fit anywhere else.  And so, this is the California you know. (continue left)

And for all the superficial trappings, sights, events and glitzy manifestations the state is famous for, there is an unblemished, wholesome and enriching perspective from which to view this western frontier.  Because before Junipero Serra, the Spanish missionary who set out to convert the Native Americans to Christianity, there was already a California so vast and rich in physical accoutrements, itll submit you into profound humility and steal your breath away.

So stunning, overwhelming and incomprehensible are some features that the National Parks Service of the Department of the Interior found it worthy to designate more parks in this state than any other, ranging from Yosemite, to Death Valley, to Kings Canyon, just to name a few.   To be candid, that is just the tip of the iceberg for many more sublime wonders remain. Its fortuitous that in Californias past, visionaries like John Muir and Ansel Adams took the earliest initiative to spur awareness and champion the importance of preservation and conservation.  With that precedent, California has become a charismatic de facto leader in natural resource management.

Where the federal government leaves off, the state takes over.  The California State Parks is entrusted and mandated with the responsibility of extending those notions.  Its mission, to provide for the health, inspiration and education of the people of California by helping to preserve the state's extraordinary biological diversity, protecting its most valued natural and cultural resources, and creating opportunities for high-quality outdoor recreation.

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The California State Park System is also one of the largest operators of campgrounds in the country with nearly 18,000 campsites.  More than a third of its parks reserve substantial areas for tent, car and RV camping.  The sites are particularly pop up friendly, with pavement long or wide enough to accommodate the trailer and tow vehicle.  It is wise to check ahead of time to make sure that your chosen campground can accommodate your camper or trailer. A few campsites offer electrical, water and sewage hookups.  Water and dump stations, bathroom and shower facilities are pleasantly numerous, strategically located, Spartan, but most importantly, clean.

For merely $7 to $18 dollars a night and sporting some of the best wilderness locations in the West, California State Parks are well worth keeping the secret to yourself.  Reservations can be made in advance by telephone or through the Internet, but actual sites can only be chosen once you arrive at the campgrounds. (continue left)

At night, you can virtually feel the mountain breathe, as it lies asleep, placid, just at it has for millions of years.  You can sense the heartbeat of an aged redwood as it rises in prayer to the heavens, and listen to the constant crashes of waves against the shore as the Pacific Ocean tries to claw away at the North American continent.

It is the grandeur and the subtleties that leave you in awe.  It is the commanding geologic stature of Mt. Diablo near San Francisco, defiantly rising 3300 feet from sea level; this California State Parks mountain peak has the distinction of granting the visitor an unobstructed view of more land area than anywhere else in North America!  Ano (Ah-nee-oh) Nuevo is seasonal host to thousands of enormous elephant seals which can reach 16 feet in length and weigh as much as three tons, and the observer is captivated as they perform their mating rituals within yards.  But it is also the lonely hooting of a nocturnal owl as it snaps the dead silence of an eerie night, and the graceful glides of the languid jellyfish in tide pools that bring as much inspiration to the uninitiated. (continue left)

The Pop Up Times Community:

by Ray Santiago, aka Surfcal

When you investigate the definition of community in the dictionary, there are several entries.  But the one that is most idealistic and should receive the most favor is where it states, the condition of living with others, friendly association and fellowship, because, it is in this particular spirit that the members of the Pop Up Times, or PUT community lives out its greatest truths.

Nearly five years ago, back in 1998, Pop Up Times, an idea of a magazine was just a twinkle in the eye of co-founder and creator Dave Newhouse.  Who would have thought that a magazine dedicated to a small segment of the RV camping industry would give credence and deference to a publication.  But undaunted, Dave Newhouse set out to achieve the improbable and damned the odds.

For two and a half years, the magazine dutifully fulfilled its mission on pulp and the net featuring articles about the joys and heartbreaks, trials and tribulations, and the agony of defeat and triumphs of a kooky hobby called tent-trailer camping.  And then, it struck a chord and a spontaneous combustion of sort ignited.

Suddenly, a segment of the population that was ignored, maligned, passed over, dissed and taken for granted, galvanized into one cohesive unit and experienced unity.  They formed a bond unlike anything else seen in the camping world.  And though consisting of the smallest population compared with their counterparts of tenters, travel-trailers and Motorhome users, the pop-up movement and its Golden Age had begun.

Pop Up Times, the magazine, along with its Web site had won the hearts and mind of a nomadic set, looking for tips, gathering ideas and most of all, looking for people that are like themselves.  Lets face it, human beings are creatures of habit and desires.  And one of the strongest compulsions is the desire is to band with people that are like themselves.  It is only human to do so.

It wasnt until after two and a half years of existence, in the year 2000, that Pop Up Times innocently added a Message Board on its Web site.  This humble and brilliant move proved to be the missing link, the crucially revolutionary twist that would unite the disembodied whole.  It would become the virtual Community Center and City Hall in which all would gather, and a mass of people began to realize that they werent facing their camping lives alone.  No, there were individuals from all walks of life and families from all over the place that shared the same dilemmas, values and above all, their favorite pastimes.

Strangers who seemed like brother and sisters, acquaintances that feel like youve known them throughout your whole life are, all of a sudden, present by the dozens.  And there they were on the boards, friendly, available and accessible.  They may live in the next county or more likely, hundreds and thousands of miles away, but more importantly, in the virtual sense, they might as well be your next door neighbor.

Like any society, the PUT clans formed cliques.  As the site became more mature, an egalitarian system had set in.  Someone comes up with an idea and it catches fire with a group of members and soon enough, the collective desires of a people are carried out.

In all this, an affable man emerged as a sort of Guru, leading with charisma, wisdom and with a distinctively straight-forward, no-nonsense approach.  Dave Newhouse is an enigma, and while many have never met him in person nor have even seen a picture of him, has gained a cult-like following and members regard him with the admiration reminiscent of a small towns favorite son.  Dozens of emails are zapped to him on a daily basis, and hundreds of personal queries are addressed to Dave on the message boards, but there just isnt enough time for each to be personally answered.

Instead, Dave has wisely used his greatest strength all along, to turn a lot of the questions and issues back to the community, to be solved by an army of experienced men and women in the pursuit of pop-up camping.   Dave doesnt dabble too much in the day-to-day life of the message boards, hes out there hustling advertising dollars to uphold greater aspirations and to keep a publication rolling off the presses despite burgeoning costs.

For those who have been regulars on the PUT boards, you may well remember the blackouts, when the site would be down for days because of failure.  There was the time when an offsite hosting vendor went out of business.  And due to explosive popularity, recall the time when a new server was put in place only to be outgrown within weeks.  PUT isnt out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination, and by stretching dollars, it is doing better.

And if you visualize the PUT Website as a whole community, then the metaphoric neighborhoods reside in the Message Boards and the Fireside Chat.  For this is where they live and breathe in a large portion of the culture that has enthusiastically built up around Pop Up Times.  You couldnt build a foundation and form a community like this if you artificially set out to do so.  What has happened here is truly one of those magical once-in-a-lifetime occurrences when all the elements align in perfect order.

The advent of an invention that alters the course of the whole human race happens only once in a great while.  Once the wheel was discovered, humankind was changed forever.  So by happenstance, the Internet came to fruition in our generation, and whether you like it or not, thrust all six-billion human beings forward in a single stroke. Considering that the availability of the Internet to the masses has not been around that long and the kind of bond that has spawned the organic growth of any dynamic online communities certainly isnt at all common, then finding one with the pulse and vigor that is the PUT lifestyle is like discovering life on another planet.  It is one in a million.

And thus, the PUT community is very special in many ways.  It was made possible by a combination of random conditions, above all, timing and perhaps, fate.  PUT came in at the right place at the right time.  It connected with a small group, but collectively large enough to be a force.  And by aggregating the disconnected lot on a simple Website, it reached a critical mass where there is strength in the numbers, yet still small enough to have a unique common interest, and most importantly, a common cause.

And it is in the message boards where each member has a privileged seat of belonging, where everyone has an equal voice to be heard.  And they have made a difference in real-life.  Manufacturers monitor the site because not only is it a free focus- group, it is brutally outspoken, unapologetically honest and fixed on a single-minded quest to elevate the pop-up camping experience.

People share modification techniques and submit their reviews on certain camping gadgets.  One user finds a deal, lets the rest of the pack know and before you know it, causes a run on a particular item from a certain store.  That is pure empowerment!

But the latest and greatest achievement of PUT and its message boards is how it has gone past the stage of being in the virtual state and how it has made a profound statement in these united states.  In campground after campground across the continent, much like the early covered wagon pioneers that conquered the wild, trailers from all over the land are blazing into the wild, inspired by a new sense of purpose.

The weekend warrior with trailer in tow, are geared in forward motion on a given appointment to meet up with strangers with strange screen names.  The excitement is akin to ones first day in school, a little trepidation, a burst of anxiety and full of anticipation.  The group rallies have become a PUT camping rite-of-passage.  And in the end, after the social activities, the potlucks and the one-upmanship in rig modifications and accessorizing, one goes away with awesome experiences of new friendships gained and are left with lifelong memories.  And they come home with a visual imprint of a persons face and their real names.  It is a soulful manifestation of the ideas set forth in the boards.

No longer are they strangers, but the world is a better place, for theyve attained a point where theyve made tangible connections in real-life and perhaps extended the notion of world peace and mutual understanding by visiting each other one campsite at a time!  It is a natural and frequent sentiment on the boards that campers feel that their fellow campers are the best folks in the world.  And as the keyboard camper steps out in into the open, it is where that quality is graciously revealed.