swim history girl

lap swimming

Berkeley City Club: Berkeley, CA, USA

Nov 3, 2025

hotel pool, lap swimming, Luxurious historic pool, Pool, Uncategorized

architecture, berkeley, berkeley city club, california, californiahistory, hearst-castle, historic pools, history, julia morgan, lap swimming, Pool, san-francisco, sanfrancisco, sanfranciscohistory, swimming, swimming photography, tourism, travel

Ever swim in a castle? Probably not if you live in the USA, which has 10.7 million pools but only two “castles” with fully operational indoor swimming facilities. Channeling my inner C3PO, your odds of swimming in an American castle are approximately 5.35 million to one. To quote Han Solo: Never tell me the odds. …
Richmond Plunge: Richmond, CA, USA

Sep 29, 2025

Big historic pool, lap swimming, Luxurious historic pool, Pool

bay area, bayarea, big pool, california, californiahistory, historic pool, lap swimming, lapswimming, photography, Pool, preservation, richmond CA, Richmond Plunge, richmondplunge, richmondswims, sanfrancisco, saving historic pools, swimming, swimminghistory, travel, writing

Two identically named cities, 2,857 miles apart, one East Coast, the other West Coast. One day in August, husband and I spent time in both, traveling from Richmond, VA, to Richmond, CA, and ultimately hanging my swim cap in Berkeley. The trip took less than 12 hours and would have been faster if we hadn’t…