Hello Everyone! I hope everyone is having a pleasant October so far. I haven’t seen much in the way of leaves changing color out here in California, but the window decorations in the stores are telling me that Halloween is right around the corner. It’s always a fun time of year and it usually means that the end of my tour season is also in sight. Three more trips and I’m a free man for the winter and while it’s been an amazing season, I’m looking forward to being back on my own for a while.
Since I last wrote, I’ve run two 3 day tours to Yosemite and had a week in between all to myself. The trips were both really good, with excellent groups and decent weather. It’s starting to cool off a bit in the mountains, and the smoke from this summer’s fires seems to be mostly gone. I ran both trips in pretty much the same way, with wonderful hikes in the valley, the high country and down to see the giant sequoias. I can definitely say I’ve come to know Yosemite better this summer than I could have ever imagined, which is something I’ve really enjoyed. It used to be my favorite park in the country, but traffic and crowded trails dropped it down my list a few notches over the years. With the introduction of a reservation system, the number of people in the park seemed much more reasonable this summer, and I’ve really enjoyed my time there. I’ve gotten to hike most of my favorite trails, and discovered plenty of new ones as well. I have one more trip to Yosemite this summer, but I’m already looking forward to returning next year when the waterfalls are back and spring is in the air.
Between these trips, I got out of the bay area for a week, and Shadow Catcher and I got to spend some serious time together while I got out and explored a little more of California. We started by heading down to the coast at Santa Cruz, a nice little beach community about an hour south of San Francisco. It was the filming location for the beach scenes in the 1980s classic horror film The Lost Boys, so it’s always had a special place in my heart. As a kid who had never been to the west coast, I imagined all California beach towns looked like Santa Cruz. It was pretty quiet when I was there and I enjoyed wandering around the boardwalk, hanging out with the sea lions out on the pier, photographing the lighthouses and just enjoying the smell of the salt air and the sound of the waves crashing on the beach. I even found a great little dive bar called Brady’s Yacht Club with $2 beers, by far the cheapest I’ve seen anywhere in California in a very long time.
I spent an afternoon and evening there and the following morning as well before heading down the coast to Monterey. I’ve spent some time in Monterey before and have always wanted to visit the aquarium and this seemed like a good chance to do it. It’s one of the top-rated aquariums in the country and I was excited to check it out. It didn’t disappoint. There were some amazing tanks with beautiful hammerhead sharks and massive turtles and sea bass. The playful sea otters always make me smile and I enjoyed watching them frolic and play. It was the jellyfishes, though, which really stole the show. They are just so cool in the light the aquariums show them in and I could sit and watch them for hours. I also enjoyed several of the educational programs in the amphitheater. They also had a great historical account of the canneries which once lined the waterfront and of the people who worked in them (made famous by John Steinbeck in his classic Cannery Row). That evening I had an enjoyable happy hour experience at the Sand Bar which served up some delicious seafood apps alongside affordable California wines.
I spent some time reading my book on the beach at Seaside and then headed inland to the small city of Salinas. I only knew two things about Salinas when I got there. This first was that it was somewhere near Salinas that he let Bobby McGee slip away, she was looking for a home and he hoped she found it. The second was that it was the hometown of one of my favorite American authors, John Steinbeck. The morning after I got there, I went to see the house he grew up in and then spent some time at the National Steinbeck Center. This was a decent museum, but it often seemed like they had spent money on cool props instead of on good substance. The highlight for me was worth the price of admission though, as this museum is the home of Rocinante, the truck and camper that Steinbeck drove around the country while writing the book Travels With Charley. This is one of the best American travel books ever written and I’d consider it one of the top inspirations for this journey, so it was so great to see Rocinante there “in the flesh”. In fact, it was one of the highlights of my summer. Now if I could just get to Missouri and see William Least Heat Moon’s Ghost Dancing!
There wasn’t much else to Salinas, so I headed on out to Merced for the night. I had a few beers at Gabe’s Bar, a tiny little hole-in-the-wall bar that serves up some of the biggest and coldest beers in the state. I had a great chat with a local man named Juan who has been delivering milk from the dairy there to local stores for over a decade. He was a friendly bear of a man who told me the story of how he met the love of his life and how he let her slip away. I really enjoyed talking with him, but after a few beers it was time for me to get some sleep.
I spent some time running errands in the morning and then headed out to a ranch near Raymond, California where I met up with some of my oldest friends for a weekend of beer and history. About 15 years ago, my buddy Tim convinced me to join The Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus, a historical society which traces its roots back to the gold rush. They do a lot of charity work around the west coast and put up plaques about historical events which may not get the attention they deserve otherwise. While I’ve only been to a few of these so-called “clamp-outs”, they’re always entertaining and we always laugh a lot and have a good time. This one was cool because it included a bus tour to go around the county and check out a handful of the plaques they have put up over the years and hear the stories they tell. It was a great weekend that seemed to go by way too quickly.
After saying my goodbyes on Sunday, I spent a little more time in the area, cruising around and checking out some of the local gold-rush history. I eventually made my way out to Turlock where I spent the evening hoisting a few pints at the impressive Dust Bowl Brewing Company and watching the sun set. Then it was back to storage for Shadow Catcher and back to San Francisco for me, but it was a good week out there together.
I ran that second trip to Yosemite last week and now I’m back in San Francisco for a few days. I was thrilled to be able to watch some Penn State football over the weekend at the Penn State bar here in the city. There were at least a hundred of us there at 9am for kickoff and even though it was not a good game for us, I enjoyed talking to some fellow Penn Staters, including a lady who grew up not far from me in Maryland. I may be getting a little too old to be drinking beer first thing in the morning though so the rest of the day was pretty quiet. On Sunday I went and visited some of the oldest bars up in North Beach which was cool, and the last few days I’ve just been laying low and trying to get some work done.
Later this week, I’ll take off on a six day walking tour to Yosemite and King’s Canyon. I’ve obviously spent a lot of time in Yosemite this summer, but I haven’t even been to King’s Canyon in over a decade so I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll be back in the city for my birthday and Halloween and then I’ll head out on another six day tour, this one to Napa and Sonoma for walking and wine. It should be a good time as well.
That’s my story from the last few weeks. Since my season is winding down, I’ll be getting back to posting more regularly soon enough. I hope you all have a great week out there, wherever you are and I’ll see you again real soon. Thanks, as always, for reading.
-Mike
Santa Cruz Light