In December 2023, Paul Preston realized that his girlfriend Susan Huckle was a big fan of road trips and lists. So for Christmas, I gave him the LA Times' “101 Best California Experiences” zine, a traveler's wish list highlighting my top destinations throughout my four decades of traveling the state.
I'm glad to know that the gift was a success.
Preston and Huckle looked over it and marked the places they had already seen. Then they hit the road.
And now, after two and a half years of crisscrossing the state between work assignments, they're back to report that they've covered all 101 locations on that list. Although the two have also traveled beyond state lines, the quest to cover California “totally informed our lives for the last two or three years,” said Huckle, who sent me a thank-you note after checking the last box.
After the note arrived, I was eager to call them and get more information. Of course, I caught the couple in the middle of a day trip.
Susan Huckle and Paul Preston set out to visit every place on the LA Times' 2023 list of “California's 101 Best Experiences.” Along the way, they were married in Yosemite Valley.
(Nick Wuthrich)
“We're exploring,” Preston said. “So you're getting what it's about.”
Now they are also married. That happened last July in Yosemite Valley, which, yes, was on the list.
Huckle, 41, an actress, host of “LA This Week” on Channel 35, Universal Studios performer and author, grew up in Santa Maria on California's central coast.
Preston, 56, is also an actor. he leads movie location tours and hosts podcasts, movie trivia nights and special events. He grew up and went to college on the East Coast, so he had fewer California miles under his belt when the couple met in 2020.
Their California 101 travels began in early 2024 with a trip to Paso Robles, where they saw the green slopes along Highway 46, Morro Rock, and the elephant seals at Piedras Blancas, near Hearst Castle.
“And then,” Preston said, “we moved on.”
Some of their most satisfying stops, the two agreed, were places they hadn't heard of, like Orange Works in the Central Valley town of Strathmore and Angel Island State Park, sometimes known as the Ellis Island of the West. Huckle called Angel Island “a union of natural beauty with excellent and powerful historical information.”
At the beginning of this year, there were only a few destinations left to check out.
In April, they did the Indian Canyons and Sunnylands estate near Palm Springs, the Integratron near Joshua Tree and the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Arts and Culture in Riverside. In June, they rafted the South Fork of the American River, along with stops in Old Sacramento and, finally, Columbia State Historical Park. Then they made their own lists of favorites.
Susan Huckle toption 10:
Yosemite Valley
bad water basin
Mammoth Mountain
Angel Island State Park
Cheech Marin Center
Joshua Tree National Park
South Fork of the American River
The Marshall Store in Tomales Bay
Santa Cruz Island
sunny lands
Paul Preston's Top 10:
Yosemite Valley
Hollywood Bowl
Griffith Observatory
Catherine
Mammoth Mountain
South Fork of the American River
Erick Schats Bakery in Bishop
Huntington Library and Gardens
Palm Springs Cable Car
Balboa Park, San Diego
Now that they've seen so much of the state, I had questions. For one thing, what places that weren't on the list would they have included?
AlcatrazThey agreed. Furthermore, as an admirer of redwoods, Preston liked Calaveras Big Trees State Park. As an avid cyclist, Huckle liked the 22 miles. Marvin Braude Bicycle Path from Torrance to Pacific Palisades.
And was anything on the list a disappointment?
“The Carmel Mission,” Huckle said quickly. “It's beautiful and the missions are an important part of California history.” But he said the mission's account of its own history seemed “whitewashed.” saying little about the native loss and trauma which historians increasingly recognize in mission accounts.
Huckle said: “I was like, 'Come on guys, no one thinks about this anymore, right?'”
Now that you're done with the Times' “101 Best California Experiences,” what will shape your next trips?
They have a list for that. Huckle picked up a guide to Los Angeles, “The Secret Angels” by Danny Jensen, and the couple plans to start where the book does, with the Triforium, a multicolored sculpture that went up in front of City Hall in 1975 (and once featured music).
After? Maybe he Faces of the Elysian Valleya rotunda sculpture that, according to Huckle, “looks like Easter Island in the middle of Cypress Park.”
That will leave only about 138 more destinations in the book to cover.
If anyone can do it, it's these two.
