Convincing my teenage daughter to hike Pinnacle Peak Mountain turned out to be more than family travel, it was a mother-daughter moment that brought us together.

Our goal was to go wine (ing) on the Pacific Coast Highway: wine tasting through the California Winery Region, however no wine for us. Let me explain because I'm sure you were expecting a lovely article about the California Wine Trail and picturesque ocean scenes; so were we. It didn't happen.

We took a romantic getaway weekend in San Diego to celebrate our 20th wedding...

Now that I've been here about 2 and a half years, you can take my lessons learned if you want to use the most of your time in Hollywood on where to go and where not to go.

We received a lot of advice about getting to Yosemite early, parking in one of the main lots and then taking the Shuttle, which takes you to just about every popular place, or you can hike from those popular places to where you want to be. This was our plan until my 14-year-old daughter sprained her ankle literally two days before our trip and ended up on crutches.  Our plans for hiking now had to be adjusted to Plan B: driving and parking as close to the sights as possible.