"Roam-O-Rama" marches into the new millennium with a new focus: San Diego County and beyond. During the seven-year tenure of this column in the San Diego Reader, I've recommended nearly 300 outdoor activities and adventures of a strictly local kind. The list of remaining places to cover within the county itself, however, has been wearing thin lately, and it's time to reorganize. Starting soon, the geographic scope of "Roam-O-Rama" will expand to include all of Southern California. I will cover outdoor places bordering greater L.A., up the coast as far as Ventura County, north to the Mojave Desert and Death Valley, and east into Imperial County. On rare occasions, I'll venture south into the frontera region of Baja California.

The new column will also visit (or revisit, with a different twist) worthwhile destinations in San Diego County itself. As before, I'll focus primarily on hiking trips and trails and secondarily on a wide range of other activities: urban walks, bicycle rides, camping, picnicking, geologic explorations, and special astronomical events such as eclipses, comet apparitions, and potentially spectacular meteor showers.

Many of the hike descriptions appearing in this column thus far have been adapted from my guidebook titled Afoot and Afield in San Diego County. However, some newer hiking opportunities have appeared (and will continue to appear) in this forum first.

"Roam-O-Rama" readers should know that all columns back to as far as April 1998 are archived on the Reader's website. Just point your browser to www.sdreader.com/ed/roam/roam.html. This archive will grow as more trips are added throughout this year and in future years.

It's been a pleasure to share my outdoor experiences with you in the pages of the San Diego Reader, and I look forward to doing a lot more of the same.