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This Week on the Road - August 13th-20th

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This Week on the Road - August 13th-20th

When I left you last week, I was at the wonderful public library in Brookings. From there I was planning to make my way up into the Samuel H. Boardman Scenic Corridor which covers some of the most beautiful coastal scenery in the south of Oregon. Unfortunately the fog just wouldn’t lift that day, so I spent a lot of time hanging around the beach and reading which was also nice. The skies finally cleared to some extent around 6pm so I hustled my way up the coast, pulling off to take a bunch of photos along the way. I wish I had had more time to do it, but it was really magical nonetheless and I had some amazing views. The broad beaches and sea stacks are really something to see and I’m really glad I got a little bit of sun to take some photos with. In the end, I only made it as far north as Gold Beach before it got dark, but it was a lovely evening…

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This Week on the Road 8/1-8/13

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This Week on the Road 8/1-8/13

Hello Everyone! It is wonderful to be back writing This Week on the Road, but not nearly as good as it is to actually be back on the road. I spent the last year dreaming of the open highway ahead of me and the wind in my hair. As much as I love my hometown and my family and friends, I missed the natural landscapes around which I have built my life. For the rest of 2025 I plan to surround myself with beaches and mountains, waterfalls and glaciers, sunsets and wildlife. I have also learned in my life that while some people thrive on routine and knowing their surroundings, I live for new places I’ve never seen or visited. I may love the museums and bars and coffee shops at home, but for me there is always something special about walking into the unknown – a town or restaurant or music venue I’ve never been in before. I can spend my time looking around and picking up on the details of the place, eavesdropping on the local gossip. I like being the stranger in town. It’s a role I embrace. This last week+ has been a wonderful reintroduction to the world of travel and vanlife for me, with a few familiar places, a few familiar faces and a whole lot of something new.

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Finally, Finally Back on the Road

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Finally, Finally Back on the Road

Hello Everyone!

It is so nice to be back writing in this space again after entirely too long. It has actually now been a couple of years since I was keeping up with this blog on a regular basis, but that is all about to change. I am back in California, back in my van Shadow Catcher, and back on the road. To all of you who have been sticking with me for a while, thank you from the bottom of my heart. To all of you who have subscribed to this page in the last couple of years (and probably forgot that you did), welcome! I’m glad you’re here and I hope you will stick around for a while. I usually put out this newsletter on Thursdays and offer an update on the week of travel behind me and plenty of photos of the places I have been. This week will be a little different as I want to update everyone on what’s been happening in my life these last couple of years, and it’s not really a cheery topic. I promise it will be lighter from next week on. But for this week, here we go…

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Hello From Alaska

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Hello From Alaska

Hello Everyone! Greetings from Anchorage, Alaska. I apologize for how long it’s been since I last posted. I’ve been unbelievably busy running tours all summer, and most have been camping tours with limited internet connectivity. But I promise I’ve been thinking about you and taking lots of photos. It’s been a very short but sweet run here in Alaska this summer, with three wonderful trips separated by a short jaunt back to California in August. I’ve gotten my fill of salmon and halibut. panned for gold, hiked up glaciers, watched humpbacks and bears and plenty of moose. And tomorrow it is all over. The leaves have started to change and there’s even some snow in the air at higher altitudes so that means it’s time for me to head south and finish my season in the desert and the Sierras. I promise there are many more pictures to come, so watch this space, but for now I just wanted to check in and let you know I’m still alive and to share with you some of my photos from the drive up to Alaska. Also know that I’ve really been saving my nickels and dimes this summer so I will be back to this project full-time in early 2025. I hope you are all having a wonderful summer wherever you are and I’ll share so much more about my summer when I get back to California next week. Take care and thanks for following along.

-Mike

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Back on the Road in America

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Back on the Road in America

Hello Everyone!

It’s wonderful to be back with you this week and to be back on the road. I’d first like to take the opportunity to say thank you to all of you who reached out with kind words about my uncle since last I wrote. He is doing much better and seems on the road to recovery. It was a hard few months at home, but I was glad I could be there to support him and my mother through some very tough days.

I’ve also had some really good news on my photography front as the two photos above have been selected to hang in the Rockwell Gallery of the Salmagundi Club in New York City. This club is one of the oldest art organizations in the country and it’s truly an honor to have my photos included in their current exhibition. If you’re in or anywhere near New York City, go check it out, entrance is free.

With that good news in my back pocket, I flew back to San Francisco about two weeks ago and enjoyed a day to myself in the city before I ventured out to check on Shadow Catcher. Before I even turned the key, I changed the oil and checked all of the fluids etc., but she started right up with no problem. She definitely has a little bit of an issue with one of the front brakes, and while it didn’t seem to affect how well we stopped, it did make a heck of a noise each time. This should be an easy fix when I get the time to do it. Other than that, it was great to take her out for a spin for a few days.

I spent a couple of days cleaning her out real good and getting rid of some things which I just don’t need. In Stockton I went to see the Garden Brothers Nuclear Circus which was incredibly entertaining. I even got to meet the second shortest mobile adult in the world, Edward Niño Hernández, who stands proudly at just 27.64” (70.21cm). Then I went out for a night in Isleton, a cool little city with a lot of Chinese-American history right in the Sacramento River Delta. It also has one of the best little beer bars in the region. I spent my last night out in Pacifica getting a little beach time in before putting my old van back in storage. This is the last summer I plan to do that as I plan to be back to blogging and traveling in her full-time for a while after this season.

After a few days in San Francisco to get all of my paperwork etc. done, I drove solo up to Seattle where I began a two week camping trip through the U.S. Rockies. This is going to be my 17th summer guiding overland tours of the U.S. and Canada, something which seems truly beyond belief. This tour took in Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, three of my absolute favorites. It was still really cold out there with nighttime lows below freezing and plenty of snow still on the mountains. That being said, it was also really beautiful and we saw a ton of wildlife…

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Hello Friends!

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Hello Friends!

Hello Friends!

Long time, no see. I hope you’ve all had a wonderful winter, stayed warm, gotten out for some cool adventures and are looking forward to the coming spring and summer. I am writing to you today from home in Washington D.C. after an amazing couple of months in Europe and North Africa. I’ll be here for a few more weeks and then I’ll return to California early next month. I have a couple of trips to the Rocky Mountains scheduled for late May/early June and I’m really looking forward to getting back up to Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons and Glacier National Parks. Who knows where the summer will lead from there.

When last I wrote, I was getting ready to fly out to Ireland. I arrived in Dublin with no problems and enjoyed a few days of catching up with old friends, knocking back a few pints of Guinness and hearing some great live music. I’ve been to Dublin before, but many years ago and it feels like such a distant memory at this point. It was nice to get out and do some exploring while my internal clock adjusted and I got used to sleeping in dorm rooms again. I was in Dublin for a few days and then caught a flight on to Porto in Portugal.

I spent about two weeks in Portugal in total. I was in Portugal way back in 2000, but really only spent a few days in Lisbon. My friend Julie has been raving about Portugal all year, so I thought I’d go see some more of it for myself. I spent my first day there out in the Douro Valley, the main wine region in the country, and had a lovely time. The next day it started raining and raining hard and it didn’t really let up for almost a week. I did my best to explore Porto, Aveiro (“The Venice of Portugal”) and the University Town of Coimbra, but the rain really brought me down. After a couple of days in Lisbon which included a trip to the incredible fairy tale town of Sintra and a quick visit to Europe’s Westernmost Point, I flew off to the beautiful island of Madeira. Madeira is still in Portugal, but it’s about 600 miles off the coast of Morocco and a world away from the rainy gloom of the mainland. It was beautiful and sunny out there and I had a blast exploring a little corner of the island and soaking up some rays.

After a few days on island time, I headed back to Lisbon and then swung south through Lagos and Faro before cruising on to Seville in Spain. Seville is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve been to in Europe and I really had a wonderful few days there. It’s vibrant and clean and churning with history and culture. The central cathedral there is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and also houses Christopher Columbus’ tomb. I also enjoyed plenty of tapas and wine and music and just wandering through the narrow alleyways of the city. In Seville I started to explore the history of the region in depth as my next six weeks would delve into the Muslim culture which ruled that part of Spain for more than 800 years.

Happily knowing I would return to Seville in a few weeks, I set off on a bus for Tarifa, where I boarded a ferry and bound for Morocco…

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August on the Road

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August on the Road

Hello Everyone! I apologize for how long it’s been since I last wrote, but it’s been a hectic and crazy month out here on the road. Until this past weekend, I had not had a day off in over a month and I’ve covered a lot of ground during that time. I guided four trips in a row which took a lot out of me, but I had great passengers with me and we saw some amazing and beautiful places. I have another solid month of guiding beginning in just a day or two, but I wanted to drop you all a quick ‘hello’ and share some of my favorite photos from this last month on the road.

I started with an old favorite – a six day hiking tour in Yosemite for Intrepid Travel. While I’ve done this trip several times including twice earlier this summer, it’s still nice to spend so much time on the trail and to show people one of my favorite National Parks. The waterfalls were still going strong for August and it was the first time I’d been able to get up to hike Cathedral Lakes in the high country this year. These hikes left everyone pretty tired, but I know every one of those passengers had a great and memorable trip and will remember Yosemite fondly for the rest of their lives.

After bringing that group back to San Francisco, I left the following day for Seattle where I started a six day trip to Portland via Olympic and Mount Rainier National Parks. It had been 20 years since I was last in Olympic and it was really nice to be back in this beautiful and often overlooked park. We did a whale watching tour, explored the Hoh Rainforest and walked by the Pacific Ocean looking out at the beautiful sea stacks of Second Beach. While I used to spend a lot of time at Mount Rainier, that’s another park I haven’t been to since before the pandemic. On our first day there we got some fantastic clear views of the mountain and I’m glad we took advantage of them because our second day was almost entirely shrouded in fog. We still had a nice hike and then headed on to Portland where we visited the International Rose Test Garden (it is the City of Roses after all) and then had a quiet dinner in the park before calling it a trip.

Half of that group stayed on with me for the next six days and a lovely Swedish couple joined us as well. That week brought us from Portland all the way back to San Francisco. We visited Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge, ate smoked salmon with a lovely couple who run an indigenous salmon business on the Warm Springs Reservation, Kayaked in a volcanic crater near Bend, Gazed out over Crater Lake National Park and cruised the California Coast feasting on some fresh oysters. We finished with a walk through Muir Woods and a lovely view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

I got a day to wind down and wind back up again and the very next day I picked up my last group of that run for a fast and furious 15 day tromp through some of America’s best National Parks. We started off with a few days in Yosemite and then had to duck around Death Valley due to the rains from Hurricane Hillary, staying in Tonopah instead. After a quick trip to Cathedral Gorge State Park, we went on to Zion and then had two great days at the North Rim of Grand Canyon. You may remember that the last (and only) time I was at the North Rim, I was recovering from Covid so I didn’t push myself too hard out there. This time I headed deep into the Canyon on the North Kaibab Trail and it was really nice to see the Canyon from a different angle. We headed from there to Monument Valley to spend some time with the Navajo and then had two great nights in Moab visiting Arches National Park and Dead Horse Point State Park. Then we were off to Salt Lake City to learn about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from the Mormon missionaries at Temple Square. Finally we spent three days in the splendor of Yellowstone before winding up our journey in beautiful Bozeman, Montana.

It was a long but quiet ride back to San Francisco from there, but I did get a few days to catch up on some sleep and a few other things before turning north again to Seattle where I am writing to you from today. Tomorrow I will meet another group and we will be headed east from here to Glacier National Park, my favorite place in the whole world. Then we’ll have some nice days in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons before winding up in Salt Lake City. I’ll get a day to myself there and then turn around and do the same trip in reverse bringing me back to Seattle in the first week of October. It’s going to be cold in the Rockies by then, but it should be quiet and beautiful as well and I’m really looking forward to it.

I don’t think I’m going to get much of a chance to do anything here on my blog over the next month, but I’ll check back in with you when these two trips are done in October. The summer sure flew by this year, but time flies when you’re having fun. I hope you’ve all had a great summer out there, wherever you are and that you’re looking forward to cooler days ahead. Thank you, as always, for reading and I hope you enjoy this little sampling of photos of some of the spectacular places I’ve been this summer.

-Mike

(Click the link to see my favorite photos from this month)

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Two Weeks on the Road with Austin College

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Two Weeks on the Road with Austin College

Hello Everyone!

It’s been a great couple of weeks out here on the road. I spent two weeks guiding a tour for Austin College, a small university based in Sherman, Texas (far from Austin, Texas – the school is named for Texas hero Stephen Austin). The tour was for a class on environmental concerns in our National Parks, a topic quite near and dear to my heart. It consisted of 10 students and their professor and took us from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the desert. I really enjoyed these young people and I got along really well with the professor, Dr. Baker, as well.

I met the group two weeks ago on a Tuesday night here in San Francisco. They invited me to join them for dinner at House of Nanking in Chinatown which is a pretty cool place to eat as a group and we all enjoyed quite a feast. It was interesting to hear what the students were studying and what their specific area of interest was for this particular class. Their topics ranged from birds to flash floods to water conservation and all of them were really important to our western parks.

We spent the next three nights in Yosemite, hiking and meeting with the rangers to discuss the park’s key issues. There was still a lot of water in the valley and it was great to see everything so wet and green. On our first full day we hiked up the Mist Trail to Vernal and Nevada Falls and there was a ton of water coming over those waterfalls. Everyone got absolutely soaked, but thankfully it was a sunny day and we dried out quickly. The last time I did that hike was last November when those waterfalls were barely a trickle and the trail was completely dry. The next day we went out and hiked to the Giant Sequoias in the Mariposa Grove in the south of the park and it’s always awesome to see these massive 2-3,000 year old giants. In our meetings with the rangers and staff, we discussed fire management and bear conservation and the conversation was quite interesting. Leaving the park we headed south and around the mountains and ended up in Barstow for the night. We did some serious grocery shopping and then enjoyed a nice dinner at Peggy Sue’s 1950s Diner just outside of town. That night we had our first group discussion and I really enjoyed hearing the student’s opinions about Yosemite and what they had seen and heard over the previous few days.

We left Barstow early the next day as we had a pretty long drive to Grand Canyon that day. We stopped in Seligman to get our kicks on Route 66 and then headed on to the South Rim…

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This Week on the Road - April 25th - May 3rd

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This Week on the Road - April 25th - May 3rd

Hello Everyone!

Greetings from Gardnerville, Nevada! I have popped out of California for a few minutes on my way through the Carson Valley and am overjoyed to see gas prices that start with a 3 instead of a 4 or 5 which is the hardest part about traveling in California. It’s a bit gloomy out today and the temperature is hovering just above freezing, so it’s a perfect day to hunker down and get this post written. It’s been a wonderful week out here on the road, slowly making my way up California 395 on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I’ve driven this road dozens of times between Yosemite and Las Vegas or Death Valley, but I have usually had to make it all the way between the two in a day which doesn’t leave much time for exploring. Being able to stop off and see the sights and do some hiking and take my time is what this trip is all about and I’ve definitely enjoyed doing just that this week. In the beginning of the week, it was pretty hot out during the day, but the nights were cool and pleasant and seeing snowy mountains out my driver’s side window was been amazing. Towards the end of the week I made my way into those mountains and even saw some snow.

I left you last week in Ridgecrest, a nice little military support community near the China Lake Naval Weapons Center. After I finished this post, I ran across the street to the little Maturango Museum which had a small but wonderful collection of local artifacts. They highlighted the plentiful petroglyphs (ancient rock carvings) in the area as well as the natural history of the local desert environment. The museum had some wonderful photos on display, both recent ones from a National Geographic bird photography competition and some great old ones from the area which had been taken by naval photographers practicing for their official duties in the local community. Perhaps best of all, the museum also served as the local visitor’s center and the ladies there gave me some wonderful ideas for my trip north. When they closed up for the day I went across the street to a very nice park where I cooked up some dinner and read my book before calling it an early night.

Wednesday morning I was up and off nice and early and made my first stop at Fossil Falls. This small recreational site is in the shadow of an ancient cinder cone and there is plentiful evidence of the area’s volcanic past. During the last ice age, the snowmelt fed into a river and that river ran over Fossil Falls. There hasn’t been any water there in a very long time, but you can still see where the water flowed over the rock on its downhill trajectory. From Fossil Falls I headed on to Lone Pine and stopped in at the Museum of Western Film History on the edge of town. The nearby Alabama Hills have served as the setting for over a hundred movies in the last hundred years, with their wonderfully textured western landscape and the backdrop of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. While most of these films were made before my time, names like The Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy were certainly familiar to me. In more modern times Tremors and Django Unchained were filmed in the area…

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This Week on the Road - April 5th-12th

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This Week on the Road - April 5th-12th

Hello Everyone!

I’m writing to you this week from grey and chilly San Diego. I began this week with a trip to Catalina Island and have spent the rest of it moving down the coast and catching up with friends along the way. It’s been great to see so many familiar faces and catch up on what they’ve been up to, but I haven’t gotten any photos edited or published this week as a result. I do have some great photo posts lined up though and I will definitely get to a few of them this week. I’ve had some fun adventures this week but it’s also been fairly quiet.

I was up early on Wednesday and off to Catalina Island from Long Beach. Parking at the terminal wasn’t cheap, but it was quick and easy and very convenient to the boat. The Catalina Express is huge and very comfortable and stable. It was a beautiful sunny morning, so I nabbed a seat on the top deck and got a little bit of sun on the way out to the island. When we arrived in Avalon (the main town on Catalina), I was a bit overwhelmed with how crowded it was. There was a cruise ship in that day so there were hundreds of people going here and there and everywhere but the crowds would die down as the day progressed. I had a room booked at the Catalina Island Inn, so I popped in to see if I could leave my bag there for the day. They couldn’t have been nicer or more accommodating and even took my number so they could call me when my room was ready. I left my bag, took my camera and headed out into the day.

I very quickly started to feel the charms of Avalon despite the hustle and bustle of a busy day. Catalina is known for its glazed clay tiles and they adorned buildings, benches and fountains in colorful mosaics. I wandered down the waterfront and past the Tuna Club and the Yacht Club, both open to members only but both housed in beautiful old buildings that I enjoyed looking at. Then I came to the Casino which towers above the town of Avalon like the Coliseum in Ancient Rome, visible from almost everywhere you go. Built almost a hundred years ago, the Casino has never been a place for gambling, but rather takes its name from an old Italian word for a small house, but which generally meant a place to socialize and dance. I took a tour of the Casino which, while it cost more than my visit to the Hearst Castle, was excellent. Downstairs is home to a grand theater which was the first theater in the country built specifically to show “talkies” or movies with sound. It’s still used as a theater today, showing movies on Friday and Saturday nights. My tour also included the dressing rooms and the incredible upstairs ballroom – the largest circular, free standing ballroom in the world which has a 180 foot diameter dancefloor and can accommodate 3,000 dancers (which it does on New Year’s Eve and other special occasions).

The Casino was built by William Wrigley Jr. who had purchased almost all of Catalina Island back in 1919 with money made from his chewing gum empire. Wrigley was responsible for most of what we see on Catalina today, including the 85% of the island controlled by the Catalina Conservancy which will remain undeveloped in perpetuity. Wrigley owned the Chicago Cubs who played (and still play) at Wrigley Field and for many years they had their Spring Training on Catalina Island…

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This Week on the Road - March 29th - April 4th

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This Week on the Road - March 29th - April 4th

Hello Everyone!

This week started and ended in L.A. but I spent the weekend out in Bakersfield. All of my California friends raised an eyebrow when I talked about going out to Bakersfield, but I really enjoyed it and was surprised at how much it had to offer. It was definitely a little rough around the edges, but the people were friendly and it was a beautiful, cool, sunny weekend to be there. I’m going to get this post done a day early this week because I’m headed out to Catalina Island first thing tomorrow morning and I’m leaving my computer behind. Catalina is in the same island group as Channel Islands National Park, but it is developed and has a year-round population of over 4,000 people. You guys know how much I love islands, so I’m really looking forward to it. The campground was full, so I’m staying in a hotel out there which also means I’ll only be there for a day, but I’m going to make the most of it. It hasn’t been the busiest of weeks, but I’m sure you’ll see that I’ve gotten a couple of bigger photo posts up this week. Let me tell you what else I’ve gotten into this week.

After I finished up this post last week I took a long drive through L.A. and up to Hollywood. I followed my GPS and it took me on a pleasantly winding route and down streets I’d never been down before. L.A. is a sprawling place and I could probably spend an entire month just exploring  around here, but it’s also a challenging place for the van life so it was just about time for me to move on. Before I went, there were three places I wanted to visit in Hollywood. The first is a tiny hole-in-the-wall spot called Tiki Ti. The whole tiki phenomenon in the U.S. began in 1933 by a guy called Don the Beachcomber right there in Hollywood. While that tiki bar is long gone, Tiki Ti remains. Tiki Ti was founded in 1961 by Ray Buhen who had been one of the early bartenders at Don the Beachcomber. He built his bar in an old violin repair shop so you can imagine how small it is. Today, it is one of the country’s most venerable tiki bars and a must-see for any tiki aficionado. I had been by it before, but never had the chance to stop in and I’m sure glad I did this time through. I enjoyed the atmosphere and the people and a couple of tropical cocktails but mostly I was just happy to soak up the history of the place.

From there I made my way back down the Sunset Strip to the Comedy Store to see Comedians You Should Know upstairs in the Belly Room. The Comedy Store is another well-known venue and another place I had never been before. The show was pretty good and some of the comedians were great (and one was downright terrible) and I was happy to have finally made it in to see a show. When it finished, I strolled down the street to Mel’s Drive-In for dinner which wasn’t great but it was fun to be there. It started to rain while I was eating my dinner, so I decided to just call it a night right there in Hollywood.

Thursday morning I was up and off to Bakersfield. I hit some rain and even about 10 seconds worth of snow on the drive, but it was sunny and perfect when I arrived. It was so nice to be in a quiet, open city again where parking was free and plentiful and I could walk wherever I wanted to go. I spent the afternoon wandering the streets and taking photos and then ended up at an old bar called Guthrie’s for happy hour. It’s a great old spot with a beautiful sign out front and a juke box and pool table in the back. From there I caught an acoustic set at The Padre Hotel and then went to The Pyrenees Café for dinner. Bakersfield has a Basque community which dates back to the gold rush. The Basque came to look for gold but found that herding sheep was more profitable because all of those prospectors needed food and clothing. There are still a handful of Basque restaurants in Bakersfield and they put out quite a spread. I had a lamb shank, and it came with soup and salad, marinated tongue, bread, pasta, vegetables and fries. The place was packed, but my dinner was really good. Full to the brim, I headed back downtown to check out Tiki-Ko, Bakersfield’s own tiki bar. It is an excellent spot – subdued but festive and with a good drink menu. I enjoyed a cocktail there before heading off to bed…

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This Week on the Road - February 26th-March 8th

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This Week on the Road - February 26th-March 8th

Hello Everyone!

The weather is very strange here in California. There is a lot of snow up in the mountains and a lot of rain in the rest of the state. Even the desert is getting rain right now. We desperately need all of this water and it’s generally a very good thing but it doesn’t make for great traveling weather. My plans to head to the mountains first were changed to a nice drive down the coast, but then landslides closed Route 1 so I’ve been hanging around somewhere in between. I’ve gotten to some nice museums this week and eaten some delicious meals, but I haven’t done too much or traveled too far. The price of gas in California is outrageous, so when I’m driving it needs to be deliberate. I have been getting through some of my Arizona photos from last winter and working on my podcast and I’ve definitely been getting to the gym every day so that’s good. But I really want to explore California with the time I have and this week has been more about reacclimating to the van life and trying to stay out of the way of the weather.

I started this leg in Sacramento, where my buddy Dave had been watching my van while I was at home and in Europe. I was hoping to head up to Lake Tahoe from there to visit some friends and get some skiing in, but the snowstorms in the mountains closed the roads and kept me from going. I spent a couple of days in Sacramento trying to wait it out, visiting the State Capitol and a few museums and getting a few things fixed on my van before giving up on the mountains and making my way out to Napa Valley.

Napa Valley is not my favorite region of California. I have spent a fair bit of time there over the years trying to find some places I enjoy, but to no avail. It’s a beautiful valley and I enjoyed driving through it, especially with the early spring bloom going on, but it’s a very wealthy area which has been built up to welcome the moneyed elite and not the average Joe. It reminds me a lot of Hilton Head in South Carolina and I just feel very out of place there. I know some people really love it and return year after year, but it’s just not the place for me. I did enjoy a brief visit to the Robert Louis Stevenson museum in St. Helena which, while small, has some interesting artifacts from Stevenson’s life and his time in California. Stevenson spent his honeymoon squatting in an old miners’ cabin in Napa Valley, a story he recounts in his book The Sacramento Squatters. I also had a delightful meal at Bouchon in Yountville which is owned by Thomas Keller, one of America’s most famous chefs

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