Huell learns about Crissy Field at Presidio of San Francisco. Once an Army airfield and site of important aviation advances, it's now part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area and has been transformed into a magnificent shoreline park.
Huell travels inland from Sweetwater Marsh on San Diego Bay to go to Paradise Creek Educational Park in National City. Thanks to local grade-schoolers this once-polluted creek is now a beautiful public park and outdoor science classroom.
Huell goes to Dana Point's Ocean Institute, a non-profit founded in 1977 dedicated to ocean preservation through education used as a hands-on laboratory for schoolchildren to learn about marine science and maritime history.
Huell explores the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes, the state's second largest coastal dune complex. He goes to both Oso Flaco Natural Area State Park and the National Wildlife Refuge with representatives from Dunes Center and US Fish and Wildlife.
Huell explores a special part of the state's coast on Anacapa Island in Channel Islands National Park. Ringed by steep cliffs, it has unique wildflowers and protected breeding areas for marine mammals, brown pelicans and western gulls.
After an overnight stay in Moss Landing at Monterey Bay, Huell takes a safari boat tour of the harbor and Elkhorn Slough. This large tidal salt marsh is teeming with life including otters, seals, sea lions, and nearly 300 bird species.
Huell tours Fort Bragg's Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens, the only public gardens in the continental US directly on the coast. Its 47 acres of botanical bliss set within coastal pines have diverse flora, a retail nursery and garden shop.
Huell meets members of Coastwalk and learns about their goal to create the California Coastal Trail, a single 1,200-mile trail along the state's entire coast from Oregon to Mexico. He gets a firsthand look at portions of existing trails.
Huell tours Lanphere Dunes in Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge on the north coast by Arcata. The refuge protects wetlands and migratory bird habitats. The dunes are one of the few pristine dune ecosystems remaining on the West Coast.
