There’s Still Time to See Fall Foliage in California

For the past few years, I’ve celebrated Thanksgiving on the Central Coast, which means I savor stunning beachside views along with my holiday meals. But there’s another part of my annual trip that’s a real treat: seeing vineyards showing off their fall colors.

On either side of Highway 101, as it winds through the Santa Maria Valley, rows and rows of grape vines sport crimson and yellow leaves each year. It’s the most Californian of autumnal scenes.

Perhaps you don’t think of fall colors as a Golden State phenomenon. But in fact, all kinds of trees across California turn scarlet, orange and bronze each fall, particularly in the eastern parts of the state.

The fall foliage typically begins in September in the Eastern Sierra — in Mono and Inyo Counties — and then spreads to lower elevations as the season continues, according to John Poimiroo, a travel writer who founded the blog California Fall Color.

Because California is so large, with such varied topography and so many types of trees, the state has the longest fall color season in the country, running through at least December, Poimiroo said. “In California, if you miss peak at one elevation, just go to a lower elevation elsewhere and see it there,” he wrote on his blog.

Or you can peep at leaves from the comfort of your home. The ALERTCalifornia program from U.C. San Diego has more than 1,600 cameras across the state that are intended for emergency management purposes, but they can also serve as a way to glimpse foliage, said Caitlin Scully, a spokeswoman for the program.

You can see images from the cameras at any time on the program’s website, and you can use the time-lapse feature to go back up to 12 hours — and maybe admire some glowing fall leaves during sunrise.

Today we’re sharing some photos of this year’s fall show that readers have sent in. If you want to go leaf hunting, California Fall Color maintains a crowdsourced map of spots where fall colors are still on display.

If you read one story, make it this

Life expectancy in the U.S. has begun to climb again as Covid mortality has receded.

Where we’re traveling

Today’s tip comes from Denise Ludwig, who recommends visiting the historic center of Los Angeles:

“Over 50 years ago, as a teenager living in Orange County, I loved visiting Calle Olvera in the Los Angeles Plaza Historic District. I first took the train with my mother and sister from Fullerton Station to Los Angeles Union Station.

Just west was Olvera Street, several blocks of vendors and restaurants in permanent outdoor market stalls. Nearby was the oldest house in the city, Avila Adobe, and many other historic buildings. The neighborhood was so richly redolent of the Spanish past that I was moved to become a lifelong student of California history, the Spanish language, and Hispanic culture and cookery.

I returned over and over, always by train, sometimes alone, especially on days I just couldn’t stand being cooped up indoors in the classrooms of Sunny Hills High School. I still have some of the trinkets I bought at the stalls. Huaraches became my favorite footgear.

And the food! My parents loved comida Mexicana, and I cut my teeth on tortillas con frijoles. But Calle Olvera opened my eyes and my palate to so many more possibilities.

Now as an old woman living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I find myself craving yet another visit to the first city I loved — Ciudad de Los Angeles — and its historic center, Calle Olvera.”

Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to [email protected]. We’ll be sharing more in upcoming editions of the newsletter.

Tell us

Winter is coming. What’s your favorite way to celebrate the season in California?

Email me at [email protected]. Please include your full name and the city in which you live.

And before you go, some good news

The Silver Crest Donut Shop, a 24-hour diner on Bayshore Boulevard in San Francisco, has had its doors continually open for more than 50 years. The establishment — part restaurant and bar, part handmade doughnut shop — is owned by George and Nina Giavris, a couple originally from the Peloponnese region of Greece who are as much of an institution as the diner’s worn jukeboxes and vinyl booths.

To step into the donut shop is to enter a time warp to the 1970s, when the couple first bought the diner — or perhaps to an even earlier decade. The scuffed powder blue countertops, the hand-scrawled menus and the atmosphere remain constant, unmarked by the world beyond the Silver Crest’s doors or the news that dominates that world.

In a recent article for Alta, the journalist Chris Colin reflects on his time at the stalwart Bay Area diner, from his first visits in the early 2000s to more recent stints as a regular patron, meditating on the restaurant and the characters that breathe life into it.

“The Giavrises have jammed their spatula into the gears of the cosmic clock,” he writes. “It’s the boldest thing you can do in this life, the biggest swing you can take — halt the incessant ticking, or at least mount a noble resistance.”