California's Golden Parks

There have been gardens on the island of Alcatraz since the days of the Civil War. People have always found a way to coax things of beauty from this windswept and desolate place. Inmates of the “Rock” found it especially nice to get out in the fresh air and tend to the gardens. After many years for neglect, the Gardens Conservancy and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area have begun a multi million-dollar restoration of the gardens. Huell gets a special look at this almost forgotten part of our history.

During the tense years from 1953 to 1979, the United States Army built and operated a total of 280 Nike missile-firing batteries in the United States. These missile sites were emplaced as the last line of defense against Soviet bombers. Today, a dedicated group of volunteers works in partnership with the Golden Gate National Recreation Area on the continuous task of restoration at site SF-88, which has been turned into a museum. This valuable historical resource is the only restored Nike missile site in the entire country and Huell gets a very special tour with a man who actually ran the site for many years.

Huell takes the Zzyzx off-ramp from the I-15 freeway and sees what this iconic exit is all about: from its early history as a Mineral Springs & Health Spa to its current incarnation as the Desert Studies Center.

With over 270 State Parks all over California, popular PBS Host Huell Howser wanted to know just how a park becomes a park, so he teams up with Park Superintendent Don Monahan for a look at two parks in progress. The first stop is at the John Marsh house which is being lovingly restored. Then it’s on to Candlestick Point State Recreation Area. As always, you’re invited to join us for this learning adventure.

The Trona Pinnacles are one of the most unusual geological features in California. The unusual landscape consists of more than 500 tufa spires, some as high as 140 feet rising from a dry lake bed. The Pinnacles have been used as a backdrop fort hundreds of movies and TV shows.

Located just off Highway 14, Red Rock Canyon State Park features scenic desert cliffs, buttes and spectacular rock formations. The park is not only rich in natural beauty, but has a deep human history as well. From the native Kawaiisu Indians, who left petroglyphs, to the 1870s 20-mule team freight wagons that stopped for water. There are also the remains of 1890s-era mining operations, and the area has been the site for a number of movies.

America's only Nobel Prize winning playwright, Eugene O'Neill, chose to live in the hills above Danville, California at the height of his writing career. Isolated from the world and within the walls of his home called Tao (dow) House, O'Neill wrote his final and most memorable plays; The Iceman Cometh, A Moon for the Misbegotten and Long Day's Journey Into Night. Today the home and grounds are a National Park and Huell gets the tour of this lovely and isolated park.

Huell meets up with Harry Medved author of HOLLYWOOD ESCAPES a book about movie locations in California. Harry tells Huell all about the long history of Leo Carrillo State Beach, and why it is probably the most filmed beach in the world. Then legendary filmmaker Roger Corman joins Huell to talk about some of the many films he's shot at this location, including one of his earliest ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS.

Huell looks back at sixty plus years of film history when he visits the Paramount Ranch. It has posed as Tombstone, Arizona, Dodge City, Kansas and has stood in for the rolling hills of Montana and the dusty streets of Laredo. Movie-goers have been fooled into mistaking it for the Royal Gorge of Colorado, the Ozark Mountains, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Tom Sawyer's Missouri. Producers have even passed it off as 13th century China, colonial Salem, and the island of Java.

Huell visits the Whitewater Preserve located just off the 10 freeway near Palm Springs. This amazing oasis contains 2,851 acres surrounded by the Bureau of Land Management San Gorgonio Wilderness and is part of the Wildlands Conservancy’s 33,000-acre Sand to Snow Preserve System. Included is and old trout farm and lodge that have been transformed into a visitor facility. There is also a picnic area, group campground, and a trailhead that is only a half-mile from the Pacific Crest Trail in the San Gorgonio Wilderness. This is truly a hidden gem!

Special one hour show featuring a visit to the California Railroad Museum where Huell rides restored vintage railcars and uncovers the mystery behind the lost Golden Spike -- the last spike driven into the Transcontinental Railroad.