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Jackie

@thebackroadtaken

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Inspired by Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” this instead, is The Back Road Taken
📍44 States 9 Countries
These are my adventures, of new and old 🌎

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There was a reason they called me Big Foot in soccer ⚽️ … was fun to try a field goal kick at the Cowboys stadium after 14 years of soccer. And love seeing my form is on point after yesterday’s Ravens/Cowboys game 🤗🏈

#nfl #form #fieldgoal #dallascowboys #baltimoreravens by @thebackroadtaken

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19 days ago

It’s been a long road in this life … to meet and make friends, especially Lea, I am so grateful!

#takethepictureup taken in Sonoma County by @thebackroadtaken

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a month ago

For the last several years I’ve had the desire to move (from California) to either Colorado or Montana ... and have had the opportunity to explore some of the most rural areas in both states - Animas Forks, Colorado being one of them.

📸 @thebackroadtaken

Animas Forks, an old gold and silver mining town located in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, just east of Telluride, was founded in 1873 and peaked in 1883 with 450 residents. Getting there was quite the trip ... you have to have either an SUV or off road vehicle and expect to spend almost an hour navigating the rocky mountain terrain to the abandoned ghost town. Maybe why I loved it so much, it remains untouched and both respected and appreciated by anyone who is willing and able to make the trek out there to see it.

#colorado #animasforks #offroadi̇ng #ghosttown taken in Colorado by @thebackroadtaken

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a month ago

I have loved living up here … and doing drives on new roads, stopping, pulling over, getting out, and just taking a breath and acknowledging I live here. taken in Sonoma County by @thebackroadtaken

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a month ago

When I heard this song, I instantly thought of my drive a few months back through the Avenue of the Giants🌲 in Humboldt County, California (4 hours north of San Francisco). I haven’t been this excited about living in a new location in years. There are so many beautiful backroads ... some through ancient redwoods like these, some through valleys of sprouting vineyards, some winding their way along the current of the Russian River, others across acres and acres of sprawling oak trees.

📸 @thebackroadtaken

Which is great timing since I’m planning to do a somewhat-new drive north for a daytrip today. Which is what I loved most about this drive through the redwoods - I didn’t know what each turn would look like or where exactly the road may take me, it’s always been ... “well, it’s just one more bend around the corner” ... until it turns into hours and hours of a drive :) Looking forward to so many more solo adventures around Northern California.

#northerncalifornia #soloadventures #backroads #avenueofthegiants #wanderlust taken in Northern California by @thebackroadtaken

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2 months ago

Another one of those posts of, “where do I start?” The photo or the song ... the photo ... I did a solo day drive all through Point Reyes, California (an hour north of San Francisco) ... a drive I’ve done many times before, and one of my favorites, but this was the first time I ever noticed this dirt road.

And the song ... I could quote every line from the song to use with this photo ... “if you see me blazing trails instead of taking the highway,” ... if given the chance, I’ll take a back road every single time. “I never fit the mold so I did it my way ...”

#solotraveller #northerncalifornia #backroads #pointreyes #neverfitthemold taken in Point Reyes California by @thebackroadtaken

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2 months ago

If I hadn’t spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to pull over to take this picture, I probably wouldn’t have posted about it. But when I saw this wolf figurine in the middle of the redwoods🌲I had to find a way to pull over to take this. What you can’t tell in this photo is that the wolf’s eyes follow you as you walk because it’s actually a security camera!🎥 … and also really creepy, especially in the silence of those redwoods. Also what you can’t see are the signs ⚠️ ALL over this property about do not enter and you’re being watched 👀 and something about loving guns. And yet, I still had to walk up to take this.

I was on one of my weekend day trips exploring new areas of Sonoma County and decided to drive up to a very, very small town 30 minutes north of Bodega Bay, called Cazadero. Cazadero (with less than 500 residents currently) was established in 1869 as a hunting resort, although it was originally named Ingrams but later renamed Cazadero in 1888, after the Spanish word “hunting place.” Fitting then for the wolf camera. 🐺

#solodrive #sonomacounty #northerncalifornia #cazadero #backroads taken in Cazadero, California by @thebackroadtaken

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2 months ago

I love that I live adjacent to Napa Valley and have been spending a little more time exploring St. Helena and Calistoga (the two towns just north of Napa proper). For anyone driving through Napa, you’ve probably driven past the Ink House Inn but may never have noticed it, as it’s tucked away from the main road behind several stately Oak trees.

Several weeks ago, I finally pulled over to take a better look at the old house, not sure at the time if it was a winery, a home, or a bed and breakfast. It turns out it’s called the Ink House Inn. I thought it was in Napa but it’s actually in St. Helena, the town directly north of Napa - it must be right on the border of the two towns.

The Victorian home was built in 1885 by gold prospector and agricultural pioneer, Theron Ink (hence, the Ink House). It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places📜 in 1985 and apparently hosted Elvis Presley in 1960 while he filmed the movie ‘Wild in the Country.’ It’s now a luxury boutique inn with themed rooms paying homage to Theron Ink and his wife, Harriet, and to Elvis with a mid-century Hollywood themed room. When I first learned it was called the Ink House, I ironically thought it must have to do with book or newspaper publishing📰, maybe because I was a Journalism major and my mind just went there.

#napavalley #california #daytrip #explorecalifornia #solotraveller taken in St. Helena by @thebackroadtaken

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2 months ago

Anyone who knows me, may have heard me gush about Ferndale, California since visiting it for the first time last fall after moving to Sonoma County. Thirty minutes south of Eureka, Ferndale, in Humboldt County, is one of those charming towns that you genuinely feel like you’re walking around on a movie set (even in this photo with the bright blue backdrop doesn’t look real). It’s not just the adorably quaint town with the intricate architecture on every street that drew me in, it’s the people! I’ve already been up there 4 times in less than a year and part of that is because of how incredibly welcoming and out-of-their-way friendly everyone is there!

Just a block behind the town’s main street is the Gingerbread Mansion @thegingerbreadmansion - an iconic Queen Anne Victorian style home/inn built in the late 1890’s and has served as a private home, a doctors office, a public hospital, an American Legion hall, a rest home, apartments, and now, a bed and breakfast.

It’s the largest residential building in Ferndale, with three floors and 32 rooms - including 11 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms and a beautifully manicured garden. The house is built from redwood trees - which makes sense since Ferndale is located just outside of the Avenue of the Giants🌲 (an amazing and scenic corridor in California of ancient redwoods).

The Gingerbread Mansion is supposedly one of the most photographed 📸 bed-and-breakfasts in the US! I’d be curious to know, have you ever heard of Ferndale?

#ferndale #california #northerncalifornia #solotraveller #humboldtcounty taken in Ferndale, California by @thebackroadtaken

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2 months ago

Add this drive to the list of reasons I love living in Northern California ... I was making my way back up to Sonoma County from the Bay Area, taking every backroad I could find, and came across the very small town of Nicasio in Marin County.

Located about an hour northeast of San Francisco, the town was founded in the 1800s but began developing in 1862. It’s a rural farming town 15 miles east of the Pacific Ocean🌊 and apparently known as “The Town that Time Forgot.” When I first heard that, I wasn’t sure what the meaning of that may have been, but I’ve learned it’s coveted for its untouched, scenic countryside with lush rolling hills and stately oak trees and dairy farms🐄 that dot the neon fields of green as you drive through the two-lane country road.

This is the old Nicasio Schoolhouse built in 1871! It’s a historic, one-room schoolhouse and is supposedly recognized as one of the last remaining one-room schoolhouses in California.

#solodrive #northerncalifornia #backroads #marincounty #oldschoolhouse taken in Nicasio by @thebackroadtaken

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2 months ago

Where do you even start when you see a mural as vivid and thought-provoking as this one? The symbolism of the red handprints (zoom in) - the symbol of missing and murdered indigenous women whose voices have been silenced by violence ... the crown of hawk feathers🪶 - a symbol of power and spiritual meaning along with inner power and bravery … and the hummingbird that’s viewed in Indigenous cultures as representing joy, healing and love and who are messengers that carry prayers to the spirit world.

I drove through the very small town of Point Arena, CA this past Sunday - an hour south of Mendocino, for the first time, a town of less than 500 people, whose history is rooted in Native Pomo heritage. The Pomo people are Native Americans of Sonomoa, Mendocino, and Lake Counties of Northern California.

This mural was finished several months ago by Nicole Ponsler who painted it to bring light to the murder of Nicole Smith of the Manchester Band of Pomo Indians, who was shot and killed in the neighboring town of Manchester, California in 2017. Her murder is still unsolved. As I got out of my car to take this photo, I walked up to the mural, having no history on it at all, and was overcome with curiosity to understand every element depicted. And that’s when I noticed an array of beautiful feathers spread out along the ground with a painted inscription on the wall simply saying, “Take a Feather.” Maybe that’s why I felt connected to the painting, I collect feathers and always feel like there’s a little bit of magic, mystery and hope behind them. 🪶

#muralart #northerncalifornia #feathers #mural #mendocinocounty taken in Point Arena, California by @thebackroadtaken

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3 months ago

With all my trips and drives, I have so many photos ... so many that I stopped knowing where to even start with them. I get so excited when I come across new roads, new towns, new people, new landscapes. I want to perfectly capture each moment - so, I of course take a picture from every angle and want to perfectly encapsulate the moment in a post with the perfect pictures and a succinct background on the history.

This most recent drive this past weekend up the California coast, where I came across this home in the small town of Elk, was the reminder that I didn’t start this account to be perfect :) I started it so that I could share my excitement, my adventures, my “I’ll pull over just ONE more time to take ONE last picture,” because it gave me a purpose and a place where my pictures weren’t just lost or forgotten memories, they were vivid moments that I intentionally wanted and desired to stop time in its place.

So, I decided that I’m going to just post my moments - and if you see moments repeated because I don’t do a carousel of all of them together because I couldn’t choose one or two or three of them from the 10 I may have taken ... I at least know I’ll have a story for each picture and each post. Like this one - where I was driving up the coast of California on Highway 1, windows down, hair up (and yet it was still somehow all in my face), country music blaring, attempting to sing along over the whipping wind, looking out at a field of cows on the left side of me and then quickly glancing to the right, just in time to see this home and thinking how incredibly picturesque it all is ... and how grateful I am to always have my eyes wide open! I also drove way too fast as I passed this house and decided 2.4 miles later to turn around to take these photos because, although I may have been content with the vague memory of it in a quick glance, I’ve learned, on many levels, if I have the choice, I’d rather make the u-turn than take the regret.

#northerncalifornia #highway1 #solodrive #solotraveller #backroads taken in Elk, California by @thebackroadtaken

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3 months ago