Fat Dog To The Big Apple

Fat Dog To The Big Apple 61 : Pig's Ears, Black Elk And Herman's Hermits

2011-01-04T04:00:00.000-09:00

"No, not pig's ear, new year". I sometimes wondered whether Amy, my soft-coated wheaten terrier, misunderstood me on purpose, just to wind me up. We were walking north along Highway 101 sandwiched between the great Oregon sand dunes to our left and Woahink Lake to our right. I was trying to explain to my occasionally-faithful travelling companion that we needed to make a New Year Resolution to send regular reports of our epic virtual dog-walk to the News From Nowhere Blog. ......... CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

Fat Dog in 2011

2011-01-04T03:57:00.000-09:00

From the 1st January 2011, updates to the Fat Dog To The Big Apple Blog will be added via the News From Nowhere Blog. The dedicated Fat Dog will remain open in order to preserve continuity and links to the new posts will appear here. If you would like to ensure you see new episodes of Fat Dog, you will need to become a follower of News From Nowhere.

Week 60 : Winchester Bay To Dunes City

2010-07-28T07:39:00.000-09:00

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Week 59 : North Bend To Winchester Bay

2010-05-19T14:47:00.000-09:00

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Week 58 : Postcard From Coos Bay - North Bend

2010-04-06T01:29:00.000-09:00

Week 57 : Postcard From Bandon

2010-04-06T01:27:00.000-09:00

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29 November 2009 : Postcard From Cape Blanco

2009-12-13T16:07:00.000-09:00

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21 November 2009 : Postcard From Port Orford

2009-11-29T04:09:00.000-09:00

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19 November 2009 : Postcard From Humbug Mountain

2009-11-22T03:25:00.000-09:00

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12 November 2009 : Postcard From Gold Beach

2009-11-15T23:33:00.000-09:00

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5 November 2009 : Postcard From Whaleshead

2009-11-10T15:51:00.000-09:00

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3 November 2009 : Postcard From Cape Ferrelo

2009-11-08T01:35:00.000-09:00

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1 November 2009 : Postcard From Brookings

2009-11-07T02:14:00.002-09:00

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A New State : A New Start

2009-11-07T02:10:00.000-09:00

"Don't you think she is getting a little plump?", my wife asked me the other day. "Who?", I replied. "Amy, she's getting rather large around her rump". Amy, our soft-coated wheaten terrier, gave us one of her looks. It was out of the "I have just been grievously offended and it will take more than a plate of chopped-up chicken breast to get me to be your friend again" category. She has an extensive wardrobe of "looks" our dog. "I suppose it's time we started walking again", I said.

If truth be told I knew it was time to dust off the pedometer and start exercising again. Some two and a half years ago, Amy and I had decided to combat the layers of fatty tissue that were attacking the pair of us by taking regular walks. To make things interesting we decided (OK, I decided, but she didn't seem to mind) that we would use a pedometer to calculate how far we walked each day and plot our course along a virtual walk from Los Angeles to California. We would use the rapidly expanding information available on the internet to learn as much as possible of the places we "virtually" traveled through. It would be good exercise, good fun and a decent attempt to discover the limits of virtual travel.

For two years all went well. We walked from Los Angeles all the way up the California coast. We visited places in our imaginations that we never knew existed. It was fun. It was the next best thing to being there. And then we crossed the state line into Oregon and we got lazy. Our pedometer gathered dust and Amy's bottom gathered fat. What we needed was a new start, a nudge in the right direction to get us going. That nudge was provided by two people. It was provided by my wife and her comments about Amy's increasing girth. And it was provided by Tina Lonergan who had come across the Blog which was the record of our trip so far and liked it.

So here we go again. I have changed the format slightly for the trip through Oregon and the posts will be virtual postcards which we virtually send every few days from our virtual walk. I hope you enjoy it. We might not think it as we trudge along the wet streets of West Yorkshire, but I am sure that both Amy and I will benefit from the exercise. The map above shows our intended route through the southern part of the State of Oregon. Whether we stick to this route or veer off in search of spectacular scenery, tasty beer or succulent chicken will depend on circumstances. Whatever happens, we will try and let you know by sending you a postcard or two.

Week 49 : Smith River To Brookings

2009-11-02T06:43:00.000-09:00

Week 49 Crossing The State Line

"Now imagine a California casino surrounded by that magnificent landscape. A casino resort featuring Live Blackjack, Video Poker, Slots and Casino Bingo". Yes, here we were stood at the door of the Lucky 7 Casino a few hundred yards north of the mouth of the Smith River and reading from the Casino brochure. Why one would want to come to where the "giant redwoods kiss the mighty Pacific Ocean" to play on a fruit machine was beyond me, but what the hell, we were in California. Just.

I say "just" because we were now just a few miles short of the long-awaited border between California and Oregon. Amy and I had been walking for fifty virtual weeks and we had progressed up the California coast from our starting point outside Los Angeles Union Station. We had climbed mountains (well, OK a couple of small hills), crossed mighty rivers (via modern concrete bridges, but what the hell) and transversed numerous County lines, but those few steps just south of the Winchuck River were the big one. As we took the momentous step into Oregon, I declared to Amy, "Just two small steps for a man and his dog, but one giant leap for the blog". I thought the words had a momentous ring about them : it was the kind of statement that would live for ever. The implications were considerable : we had left behind California Dreamin', the Golden State, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. And we had said hello to ....? I wasn't quite sure, so I quickly Wiki'd Oregon. "It's called the Beaver State", I told Amy. As we walked north up the Oregon Coast Highway our minds were occupied : Amy was working out how to track and catch a beaver and her owner was pondering the meaning of words.

The State name may have changed but the scenery hadn't. There were still trees. Tree after tree after gas station after tree. If you have the mind - and if you have nothing better to do - you can follow this part of our journey on Google Maps as the Street View van has travelled the route. But don't expect too much excitement, there's an awful lot of concrete and wood. Tiring of the concrete, Amy and I left Highway 101 and followed Ocean View Drive which hugs the coast (the Street View van didn't make it up here so you will just have to imagine what it is like). With all the changes, being next to the ocean was somehow comforting. It was still the Pacific. It was still blue. And as Amy discovered as she explored the rock pools near Red Point, it was still wet.

By the end of the week we had reached Brookings, our first Oregon city. Like so many of the places we had passed through in recent months, it is a timber town, indeed it was founded by the Brookings Lumber and Box Company just over 100 years ago and named in honour of the company President, John E Brookings. There is still a lot of wood around and if you walk down the curiously misnamed Centre Street you can still see the occasional Plywood Mill still in business. So it was with the familiar aroma of sawdust and tree-bark, that Amy and I ended our first week in our new State. Little seemed to have changed. But at least now, when my neighbour, seeing Amy and I on our daily walk, calls out, "Where have you got to?" I can reply with just a little pride : "Oregon".

Week 48 : Crescent City To Smith River

2009-11-02T06:40:00.002-09:00

Week 48 : Crescent City To Smith River

Crescent City is a pretty place, although with just a few more than 4,000 citizens it isn't much of a city and you need to squint a bit before you can recognise the crescent shape of its bay. But both Amy and I agreed it was pretty as we gazed across the water towards Battery Point Lighthouse. The lighthouse is over 150 years old and was one of original eight West Coast lighthouses built to protect shipping en-route to the boom cities of the California gold rush. I tried to lecture Amy on the design of the lighthouse and its Fifth Order Drumm Lens (with 20,000 candle power!) but as usual on these occasions she yawned, scratched her ear and fell asleep. I moved on to tsunamis in the hope that it might hold her attention but the look she gave me implied that she had never heard of her. But Crescent City is surprisingly prone to tsunamis, research shows the city has been struck by more than 15 in the last fifty years. For most of them you would have to be a researcher to know they had taken place, but the 1964 tsunami was of a different order altogether : it destroyed the city (if, unlike Amy, you are interested in the story of the Crescent City tsunami you can read the story here). Noting that someone had once said that Crescent City acts like a magnet for giant waves, Amy and I decided to head inland.

Although we left the Pacific Ocean behind us we didn't quite escape the water : it rained. It is not surprising that it rained : it rains a lot in Crescent City; with an annual precipitation of over 70 inches it is one of the wettest places in California. So it's small. it's wet and it attracts tsunamis, I summed up as we walked north up Lake Earl Drive. But it's pretty, Amy and I both agreed. Over the coming days that judgement was reinforced as we skirted the splendid Lake Earl lagoon with its profusion of wildlife. Amy noticed signs relating to the sport of duck hunting which is popular in these parts and was anxious to join in, but I put a stop to that. By the middle of the week we had discovered another potential drawback of Crescent City. This one was known as Pelican Bay State Prison.

When I first checked the population of Crescent City I found two quite different figures : the first was 4,000 the second was 7,300. I subsequently discovered that the difference between the two figures was the prison population of Pelican Bay. And these aren't your ordinary mobile-phone pinching, chicken-bone stealing criminals, they are pretty nasty individuals. With this in mind Amy and I accelerated our progress north, and only felt safe once we had crossed the Smith River. Why we then felt safe I can't imagine : one strongly suspects that if an individual can murder a string of his fellow citizens without a second thought, he would be able to walk over the Smith River Road bridge as well.

Smith River spreads its bets in terms of its attraction to passing virtual tourists. It is a river (and very nice too) and then its an "unincorporated community" (which seems to be an American term for a village ... and very nice too) and eventually a seaside community (at the point where the Smith River meets the Pacific). And very nice too. As we headed west towards our rendezvous with the ocean we knew we were there when we saw a 490 ton steel-hulled yacht lying calmly at anchor .... in the middle of a field. The ship is now a central feature of what is known as the Ship Ashore resort. It is quirky, slightly eccentric and very American. It was the perfect place to end our walk for another week.

Week 47 : Klamath to Crescent City

2009-03-18T11:30:00.006-09:00

"I'm fed up of trees", I said to Amy as we walked north out of Klamath in the general direction of .... well, if truth be told, in the general direction of a lot more trees. We had been walking for what seemed like a lifetime. In our youth there had been Southern California beaches and cities, San Francisco shops and bars. But since we had come of age there had been trees. Big trees, wide trees, straight trees, gay trees. This United States was supposed to be a land of contrasts and natural splendours: a land of deserts, mountains, prairies and cities. But as far as I could tell it was a land of trees. Amy pulled me to the side of the road so I could look down on the fine estuary of the Klamath River as if to say, "look there, it's a river not a tree, so shut up moaning" But all I noticed were the tree-lined river banks : like someone visiting the Louvre to look at the picture frames.

I cheered up a bit when we got to Requa a few miles further up Highway 101. Here is the historic Requa Inn and I am always a sucker for an inn. Dr Johnson once said that "the tavern chair is the throne of human felicity" and who was I to argue. So I went inside and pulled up a throne and ordered a drink. Amy was less than pleased as she was tied up to a wooden post outside. The Requa Inn is one of those dog-unfriendly establishments. Amy suggested trying our usual trick of smuggling her in under my coat but she is too fat for that and I half suspect that she has picked up a few Northern Californian fleas of late. Her next suggestion was that we boycott the place, but decent inns are few and far between around here. So she was tied to a post with a bowl of water.

Refreshed and revived - well I was refreshed and revived and Amy was sulking - we pressed on until we reached the coast at False Klamath Cove. The name seemingly is derived from the fact that early sailors used to mistake the headland for the mouth of the Klamath River. The shore here is strewn with bits of old timber and what might look like - if you had a vivid imagination - old bones. Amy had a good sniff and declared that they were nothing but sea-smoothed branches and I suppose dogs should know about such things. We played a game as we walked along the beach as twilight approached : guessing what kind of strange animals could have given rise to such weird and wonderful bones. I suggested to Amy that one great old log was part of the breast bone of a giant chicken and she got quite excited about the prospect of this for some time. Ah, simple pleasures.

We stayed the night at the stunning Redwood National Park Hostel which is part of Hosteling International. I couldn't find any rules about dogs not being allowed but to be on the safe side I booked her in as my travelling companion and went for the more expensive option of a private room rather than a dormitory.

After we left the Hostel it was serious trees for the rest of the week. Big trees, wide trees, straight trees .... hang on, we've been here before. I said this phrase to Amy on numerous occasions over the next few days, but we hadn't been there before, they were just different trees that happened to all look the same. It was a relief at the end of the week when we came into site of Crescent City. A city, a real city (well a kind of little city, but what the hell). I would give myself a few days to enjoy city life and then press on. Just a few miles further north and we would at long last cross the State line and enter Oregon. "Do they have trees in Oregon?" I asked Amy as we sat on the harbour wall at Crescent City. She just yawned and ignored me.

Week 46 : Orick To Klamath

2009-02-05T07:16:00.013-09:00

Leaving Orick behind, Amy and I entered Redwood National Park. Or at least I think we did, it was all very confusing. Redwood National Park was established in 1968 with the joint objective of protecting the old growth coast redwood trees and also promoting tourism in the area. There were a number of State Parks already in existence and these became partly incorporated into the new National Park, but they also retained their individual entities. Add to all this that the area was later designated a World Heritage Site and, even more recently, an International Biosphere Reserve, and you can see how confusing it gets. At any one time you might be in a National Park, a State Park a Heritage Site or a Biosphere Reserve, or all four. The giant trees must get awfully mixed up and it is a miracle that they manage to grow up so tall and straight. We had been provided with a map which marked all the different parks, sites and reserves in different shades of green but eventually Amy decided that this was the cause of even more confusion so she chewed it up.

As we walked along I tried to interest her in the dominant fauna and launched into yet another lecture about Redwood trees. "There are three members of the redwood family", I told Amy : "coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) of the California coastal fog belt, giant sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum) of the Sierra Nevada, and dawn redwoods (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) of central China". "Which is the largest?", I felt Amy wanting to ask me (sometimes I have to prompt some of her questions as she is not over loquacious in the mornings). "Good question", I answered obligingly. "Coast Redwoods, like these", I pointed to a convenient tree we were passing at the time, "are younger, lighter, but taller, whereas giant sequoias are older, broader and heavier". She looked a little unsure about my explanation. "Think of it this way", I told her, "Guy is taller than you" - Guy is Amy's Great Dane friend - "but you are fatter". Following that little bon mot, she didn't speak to me for the rest of the day.

Not that I minded that much as that particular day we were walking along the Newton P Drury Scenic Parkway, a ten-mile paved road which runs through old-growth redwood forest in the State Park (or the National Park or whatever). As Amy kept a silent look-out for the ever-present Roosevelt elk I mused on the subject of Newton P Drury. If you are the kind of person who wants to leave a lasting memorial when you finally quit the mortal sod, you can do worse than becoming a State or National Park Director. In lesser professions you might get a gold-coloured watch when you retire and a short paragraph in the company newsletter when you die, if you are a State or National Parks Man (or woman) you can almost guarantee a couple of small forests, a woodland glade, and a brace of campsites being named in your honour.

Old Newton B did quite well out of his ten years as Director of the National Parks Service in the 1940s, he had two redwood forest groves, a 10,000 foot mountain peak and a Scenic Parkway named after him. "What do you think they will name after me?", I asked Amy as we walked along in the shade of the massive redwood trees. She didn't reply - she was still not talking to me - but she stopped and had a good sniff at a steaming pile of elk dung. It said it all somehow.

Towards the end of the week we rejoined Highway 101 and experienced the thrill we always felt when we crossed a County Line. Here we were in the last county in California - Del Norte County - which as well as being the most northerly county is also one of the smallest of the rural counties. During my time in California I had become something of a County bore, carrying around with me a host of facts and figures about some of the more obscure counties that people just did not want to know about. Over the last few months I had liberally given forth from this fascinating cornucopia of knowledge only to discover that people had the habit of walking away from me when I was in mid-sentence. However, I had discovered that Amy could not use this gambit as she was attached to me by a long length of unbreakable twine, and so I once again attempted to educate her. Although this is now Del Norte County (and I should point out Amy that if you want to be taken as a local you should not pronounce the final "e"), it used to be Klamath County and before that it was part of Trinity County. I would like to pretend that Amy fained interest, but - truth be told - she didn't. But if I stopped talking when people didn't show interest, I would have led a quiet life. I continued. "There are only 30,000 people living in the County which makes it about the same size as a half-decent housing estate, but the population density is 27 people per square mile which makes it twenty times less crowded than England". I had just launched into a detailed analysis of voting figures in the County - it was, for example, one of the rare places on earth where more people voted for Senator McCain than Barak Obama in the recent presidential elections - when I noticed Amy trying to chew through her lead. I decided that she had suffered enough so I stopped talking and started whistling instead.

At the end of the week Amy and I whistled our way across the Klamath River and into the little town of Klamath. We were stopped in our tracks - and halted in mid-verse - by an extraordinary sight : a giant fiberglass carving of a bearded logger and strutting blue oxen. Amy gave a low whistle and I barked : or maybe it was the other way around, you get confused after walking through a redwood forest for a week. Which ever way around it was, we stopped to investigate. The statue, it turns out, is a 49 foot representations of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox : heroes of American folklore who did things like create the Grand Canyon (when Paul got fed up with carrying his axe and dragged it along the ground) and cut down the biggest trees in the forest without breaking into a sweat.

Why exactly these fibre glass statues were in Klamath I wasn't sure but they were standing next to the entrance of something called "The Trees of Mystery Park" so I paid the $11 admission charge (reduced rate for Seniors, dogs get in for free) and had a look around. What we found inside is what the Guidebook calls a "8/10ths of a mile groomed interpretive trail through the awe-inspiring Redwoods of Northern California". I was not sure what a "groomed interpretive trail" was and Amy was getting a little agitated - she thought I had said a "groomed interlaced tail" - but it turned out to be nothing more that a walk passed a series of trees which had names like the Brotherhood Tree, the Cathedral Tree and the Candelabra Tree. It was all very jolly, but the best bit was the 1,500 foot Skytrail cable car ride. As Amy watched the little cable cars lurch into the sky I saw a look of pure panic on her furry face. The one salvation, I am sure she felt, was that there was little chance that dogs would be allowed to ride the Skytrail. How wrong she was. She barked and whined the whole 9 minute journey, but once her four feet were back on solid earth she remained remarkably well behaved for the rest of the day.

It was with a obedient and quiet dog that I sat outside the Klamath Shoping Centre cafe at the end of the week, looking back on our walk ... and planning another week ahead.

Orick : The Bigfoot Capital of America

2009-01-26T00:04:00.002-09:00

Sunday 25th January 2009

By Sunday, Amy and I had arrived at our destination, the small town of Orick. The town - if this row of roadside shops can be called a town - clusters around the point where the Redwood Highway spans the Redwood Creek. There's an awful lot of redwood around here and we are only a short walk from Redwood National Park. But in Orick the Redwood tends to be carved into odd shapes and standing outside a variety of roadside stores. Amy found some very odd shapes and after a preliminary sniff, she drew my attention to them. "Ah Bigfoot", I said with my usual pretense of ancient wisdom, wisdom so ancient the Wikipedia ink is still not dry. "Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch", I recited to a patently uninterested dog, "is an alleged ape-like creature purportedly inhabiting forests, mainly in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Bigfoot is usually described as a large, hairy, bipedal humanoid". Amy started barking, but it appeared to be more of an indication of my mental state that a warning against a hairy, bipedal humanoid. The number of large wooden apes lining the street was an indication that Orick is sometimes called the Bigfoot Capital of America : there have been more reported sightings around Orick than almost anywhere else. One feels slightly sorry for Orick : when American small towns gather together for a drink after work and start boasting that they are the World Cucumber Capital or the American Breeze-block Capital, all Orick can claim is that within its borders a lot of people didn't actually see something that doesn't exist.

Orick does have a good bar and diner however. Hawg Wild Bar and Grill is a renowned bikers stopover, but despite having six legs rather than two wheels, Amy and I were made welcome. Amy socialised with the bar-owners' dog whilst I took a tour of some of the weird and wonderful bikes on display. On the grill a couple of Elk Burgers were cooking and in my hand a glass of ice-cold beer was chilling me out. Time to sit down and work out where on earth we are going to go to next week.

LINKS

Hawg Wild Grill and Bar

Orick Chamber of Commerce

Wikipedia - Bigfoot

Stone Lagoon

2009-01-22T23:39:00.003-09:00

Thursday 22nd January 2009

Amy has become a keen fan of spit-walking and has insisted that we walk along the coast this week. After my fearful transit of the Big Lagoon barrier, I was marched past - rather I was pulled past - Dry Lagoon and Stone Lagoon, and I have still got Freshwater Lagoon to look forward to. Nevertheless, I did manage to insist on a quick trip inland to get a look at Stone Lagoon Schoolhouse, an iconic one-roomed, red-painted, wooden schoolhouse of the type that once could be found throughout rural America. It is well worth taking the detour to see the school, it looks quite wonderful set against the dense forest and with the ever-present coastal mist sweeping down from the hills. It is usually surrounded by a grazing herd of Roosevelt elk which, to my mind, just add to the overall impression of rural idyll.

Amy didn't share my appreciation of the elk, nor -unusually for her - did she try and chase them. She must have had a frightening experience in a previous life involving elk because she adopted that cat-like, low-slung posture she reserves for when she is scared out of her wits. I ignored her fear as I was determined to get my own back for my hair-raising walk along the sand spit. "There is a distinctive school bell", I told her as I read from the guide, "but the best way to hear it is to go onto the school website and press the button marked "school bell". I was slightly disappointed with this, somehow it didn't seem right. Here we were having virtually walked all the way to Stone Lagoon and we were being advised that we could get the genuine experience by pressing a button on a computer. Seemed like cheating to me.

LINKS

Stone Lagoon School House Museum

Redwood Trails At Stone Lagoon

Big Lagoon

2009-01-22T05:23:00.003-09:00

Tuesday 20th January 2009

"It's a stretch of sea water separated from the sea by a low sandbank or coral reef", I said to my dog Amy as we walked north of Agate Beach towards Big Lagoon. We would be having close encounters with four lagoons this week so I thought it advisable to explain the word to Amy as she often had difficulty with complex concepts such as "sit", "stay", and "stop chasing that seagull". I might as well have saved my breath as she took little notice and continued to pull me along the sands even though I protested that our chosen route took us along the east side of Big Lagoon up the great Redwood Highway. Amy had different ideas, she wanted us to walk up the narrow strip of sand and shingle that separated the wild Pacific from the still Lagoon waters. "Hang on, Amy, I'm not sure it is safe", I said as she dragged me north. "Perhaps you can't get through", I tried. She pressed on. "Perhaps it's private property", I declared. She quickened her pace. "Perhaps dogs aren't allowed", said I throwing it my trump card. She trumped my trump so we kept heading up the sand spit.

According to the guidebooks, gold-seekers swarmed into this area in 1849 when discoveries were made along the Klamath and Trinity rivers. Prospectors attempted to mine the sand spits, but managed to extract very little gold despite considerable effort. It was only when we were a mile or two up the spit that I got to the paragraph which warned that particular care was needed as several times each winter the lagoon barrier is breached by waves. From there onwards I kept my eyes neurotically on the waves to our left, imagining with each incoming wave that the narrow strip of sand was getting narrower. Amy seemed relaxed about it and happily ran around searching for gold. By the time we passed the half-way mark it was me pressing ahead and Amy being dragged along in my wake. When we eventually got to the northern end of the sand spit she stopped and gave my one of her looks. It was as if to say, "what's all the fuss about, it was a lagoon, separated from the sea by a low sandbank .... ".

LINKS

Humboldt Lagoons State Park

Week 45 : Patrick's Point To Orick

2009-01-19T07:14:00.002-09:00

You will recall that Amy and I are speeding north, heading for the County Line having illegally allowed a dog (Amy) to sleep in a hotel room which did not welcome pets. Although we won't quite make the County Line in the week ahead, our route will take us through Humboldt Lagoons State Park. By next weekend we should arrive at the town of Orick .... unless the pet police catch us first.

Patrick's Point State Park

2009-01-19T05:42:00.002-09:00

"If there is a dog you particularly fancy, you could get married", I said to Amy as we walked from the Patrick's Point Inn where we had spent the previous night along the path to Wedding Rock. I was wasting my breath as Amy rarely answers me. Also she was sulking as Patricks Point Inn had displayed one of those annoying "Sorry, No Pets Please" signs hanging in its window, so Amy had to be smuggled into my room surreptitiously. Hopefully she left a good doggy-smell to permeate the room, and equally hopefully we will be across the County Line before this is discovered.

Wedding Rock really is used for weddings and one can only admire the determination of couples - not to mention the sure-footed courage of their bridesmaids, ushers, sisters, brothers and maiden aunts - who traverse the rocky staircase up to the rock. This spot has been popular for weddings ever since the original caretaker of Patrick's Point State Park was married there in the 1930s. The State Park website says "it's a uniquely special place to start the journey through life together--a rock-solid foundation for wedded bliss". There were no weddings taking place on the day we visited, and Amy hadn't come up with a suitable mate, and therefore we took the path back to Agate Beach to see if we could pick up a fortune.

We found nothing so we contented ourselves with sitting in the shade of a giant Redwood tree and planning out our walk for the coming week.

LINKS

Wedding Rock : Redwood Coast Website

Patrick's Point State Park

And So To Trinidad

2009-01-15T06:33:00.002-09:00

Thursday 15th January 2009

And so to Trinidad ... In case that sounds a bit exotic even for this pair of virtual travellers let me immediately point out that today we arrived at Trinidad in Humboldt Country and not Trinidad in the Caribbean. Nothing wrong with Trinidad Ca, mind you: this little seaside town doesn't need to stand in awe of anyone. Actually, it's not a town but a city, and with a population of just over 300, it is California's smallest incorporated city. Small it may be, but it has two lighthouses, ten public beaches and the gateway to a National Monument within its city boundary. Add to this the fact that many claim that it is the oldest incorporated city in California and that it used to be the County seat of the long-gone Klamath County, and you can see that tiny Trinidad punches well above its weight.

Let's start with those two lighthouses : there is nothing much to choose between them because they both look very similar. Trinidad Head juts out into the Pacific Ocean and its phalanx of sharp rocks and craggy bluffs coupled with the areas natural inclination towards sea fogs leads to a natural hazard to shipping. From the 1850s onwards Trinidad became an important harbour for both the gold prospecting valleys of Klamath County and, later, the lumber industry, and therefore a lighthouse was an urgent requirement. The Lighthouse Friends website takes up the story :

"In 1866, forty-two acres were purchased for a light station on the southern portion of the headland, but work on the project did not begin until the spring of 1871. First, a road was carved into the eastern side of the head, and then work began on the Trinidad Head Lighthouse, which would stand at the top of a 175-foot cliff. Given the loftiness of its perch, a squat brick tower was deemed adequate. The tower and associated keeper's dwelling, located roughly fifty yards from the tower, were finished over the course of the summer and fall, and on December 1, 1871, Keeper Jeremiah Kiler activated the revolving fourth-order Fresnel lens for the first time".

An important part of the installation was a fog bell which was set into the cliffs some fifty feet below the height of the light. The bell was struck using a clockwork mechanism which had to be wound up by the lighthouse keepers every two hours, an exhausting business. Electricity didn't come to the lighthouse until the 1940s, but then the old Fresnel lens was removed along with the metal fog bell. It was then that the citizens of Trinidad clubbed together and built a second lighthouse - nearer the centre of the city - to house the relics. This is the Trinidad Memorial Lighthouse shown in the picture above.

As Amy and I stood on top of Trinidad Head we looked out on what is the magnificent California Coastal National Monument for which Trinidad is one of the five "gateways". In all the monument covers 1,100 miles of coastline and some 20,000 small islands, rocks, exposed reefs and pinnacles. Established in 2000, the primary objective of the monument is to "protect the important geologic features and the unique habitat they provide for both terrestrial and marine plants and animals found within its boundaries". This is why, I said to Amy who was getting distracted by certain movements along the cliff edge, you can't chase the birds.

We walked back into Trinidad, it really is a super little town (I can't get my head around the idea of it being a city). Within a few weeks, Amy and I would be leaving California for the state of Oregon. This little town with its rocks and its lighthouses would form just as powerful a memory of the state as would the mighty cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco.

LINKS

Trinidad Head Lighthouse

The City of Trinidad Official Website

California Coastal National Monument Website.

Another Moonstone Beach

2009-01-15T03:21:00.002-09:00

Tuesday 13th January 2009

"I'm sure we've been here before", I said to Amy as we headed off Highway 101 down Moonstone Beach Road. The sound of the traffic eventually gave way to the sound of the surf and in front of us we saw a wonderful collection of surf-piercing rocks and near-forgotten rock pools. Amy dropped her head to one side which made for a quizzical look : she tends to do this whenever I do something or say something she doesn't understand. "Moonstone Beach, Moonstone Beach" I repeat as I flip back through our collected travel diaries. "Ah, here we are, it's just south of San Simeon and we visited it months and months ago". Amy dropped her head a few more degrees from the horizontal plane, which tends to mean "fool" : and in this particular case "it's another Moonstone Beach you old fool".

We walked on the beach and caught site of Camel Rock in the distance. Named because of its two prominent humps, the rock is a local landmark and a popular gathering point for surfers. The beach is a fine sandy beach and, unlike its Southern California namesake, is relatively unlittered with pebbles or driftwood. After a while we left the beach and wandered up to the Moonstone Grill where we surveyed the menu with much thought. "California Red Abalone medallions lighted coated in almonds and cracker crumbs and served over angel hair pasta in a sauce of chablis, butter capers and fresh herbs" is one of the house specialities but I stuck to good old steak and fries. Amy decided to be adventurous so I ordered her the sauteed duck breast. "Very tasty", I said as I washed down the last of my rib-eye steak with a glass of local wine. Amy gulped down the last of her duck and dropped her head a few degrees from the horizontal plane. Undoubtedly this meant "very tasty"

LINKS

The Redwood Coast - Moonstone Beach

The Moonstone Grill

Week 44 : McKinleyville to Patrick's Point

2009-01-13T05:13:00.002-09:00

Amy and I plan to keep to the coast this week, as we make our way north from McKinleyville to Patrick's Point. The beaches should be pristine, the coves should be craggy and every time we look inland we should see the ever-present tall redwood trees. Midweek we should pass through the city of Trinidad and by the end of the week we should arrive at Patrick's Point State Park.

McKinleyville Totem Pole

2009-01-11T04:03:00.004-09:00

Sunday 11th January 2009

For the last two days we have been walking north up Highway 101 towards our goal of McKinleyville. Someone once asked Amy how we choose our weekly goals which was rather stupid as she is a dog and doesn't speak. If they had asked me I would have said that they need to be about the right weekly walking distance from our starting point and, if possible, there should be something vaguely interesting about them. So what is vaguely interesting about McKinleyville? It has the world's largest single totem pole in the car park just outside Safeway's, that's what.

If you read the notice at the bottom of the pole you will discover that it is 160 feet high, weighing 57,000 lbs and 500 year old. This all sound quite impressive until you discover that it is not alone in claiming to be the world's largest totem pole - there are rivals in both Oklahoma and British Columbia - and it is 500 years old in the same way that my house - which is stone built - is 37 million years old. The redwood tree itself is 500 year old but it wasn't made into a totem pole until 1962. In totem pole terms it is a "celebration pole" and it celebrates the opening of McKinleyville Shopping Centre. For Amy and I it celebrated the end of another week's walking and for Amy in particular, it posed a challenge of monumental proportions. Now what would any self-respecting dog do to a 160 foot high wooden pole?

LINKS:

McKinleyville Chamber of Commerce

Ed Galloway's Totem Pole Park

Humboldt State University

2009-01-10T01:13:00.002-09:00

Friday 9th January 2009

Amy and I had carefully timed our arrival in Arcata, a city about eight miles north of Eureka. Arcata is the home of Humboldt State University (HSU) - the northernmost campus of the Californian State University System - and HSU was due to host a concert by the jazz singer Bobby McFerrin on the 9th January. The human half of our duo is a great Bobby McFerrin fan and therefore entered town humming along to "Don't Worry, Be Happy". The canine half kept him on a long leash. But the best laid virtual plans of men and dogs ... and all that. The concert was cancelled due to ill-health and therefore I had to pretend it happened as I listened to one of his CD's on my MP3 player. A pretend concert on a pretend tour - how sad is that?

The cancellation did give us time to explore the campus. The present-day seven-and-a-half thousand student university developed out of the Humboldt State Normal School, a teacher training college established in 1913. It has a excellent reputation as a centre of learning - "Humboldt students are among the brightest and most unique students anywhere", trills the university brochure - and as a centre for student activism and libertarian views. Architecturally, its most prominent feature is Founders Hall which dominates the local landscape. During the second-world war it was painted in camouflage so Japanese submarines could not use it as a navigation aid.

Today, the university is keen to entice anyone in its direction and I thought I might as well check out the opportunities for Amy (after all she keeps telling me what a clever dog she is). There's a Department of Wildlife Management, I say as I flick through the prospectus. She objects to this and indicates a degree programme in kinesiology as an alternative. "What the hell is kinesiology?" I ask as we walk out of town. I look it up in my dictionary. Ah, yes - exercise science!

LINKS:

Humboldt State University

KRFH - Radio Free Humboldt

Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge

2009-01-09T02:39:00.002-09:00

Thursday 8th January 2009

Amy and I spent yesterday walking up the length of the Samoa Peninsular, enjoying the feel of sand under our feet and the sound of the crashing ocean in our ears. Manilla Beach was windswept, largely deserted and hugely beautiful and my dog and I walked on without a care in the world. Towards the top of the peninsular the view is spoilt by a number of caravan parks - charmingly known by the locals as the Ghetto By The Sea - but I promised Amy that we would soon be returning to the delights of Mother Nature as we were approaching the northern dunes which form an integral part of the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge. I read from the brochure, trying to transmit my excitement to Amy. "The coastal habitats conserved at Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge - from lush wetlands to fragile dunes and jutting seastacks - support an incredible wealth of plants, fish, and wildlife". By then we had reached the entrance to the Ma-le'l Dunes and my eyes focused on that dreadful phrase, "No Dogs Allowed". I tried to explain it to Amy : "it's in order to protect the fragile ecosystem and ensure that these rare creatures are safe". She gave me a look of contempt which clearly indicated that she understood the double-standards which us humans are capable of, and cocked a leg up at the bit of the sign which clearly stated that hunting and fishing were allowed! As I have probably said before, strange place this America.

LINKS:

Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge Website

Samoa Bridge and Indian Island

2009-01-08T10:30:00.003-09:00

Tuesday 6th January 2009

Leaving the city of Eureka behind, Amy and I head along Highway 255 which effectively means transversing the mighty Samoa Bridge. Built in 1971, the bridge - or to be more exact, three bridges - provided a direct route from Eureka to the Samoa Peninsular and made the old Humboldt Bay Ferry service redundant. The bridges first of all links the mainland with Woodley Island, then Woodley Island with Indian Island, then Indian Island with the Peninsular.

Amy and I stopped off on Indian Island - or Duluwat Island as it was originally known - to pay a visit to the site of Tolowat village, the ancestral home of the Wiyot Indians. It was here in 1860 that a shocking massacre took place when a group of European settlers paddled over from the mainland and killed about one hundred Wiyot men, women and children. The tragic story of the massacre, of the slow decline of the tribe following the events of 1860, and of the attempts to preserve the sacred sites and the culture of the Wiyot people is told in full on the Wiyot Tribe website. Contributions are needed to help return parts of the island to the Wiyot people : a cause fully supported by these two virtual visitors.

LINKS

Wiyot Tribe Website

The Carson Mansion, Eureka

2009-01-08T07:16:00.003-09:00

Monday 5th January 2009

Refreshed by our Christmas break, Amy and I stood on Waterfront Drive, Eureka, California, contemplating the three and a half thousand mile virtual journey ahead of us. It was quite an undertaking : we needed to press on, waste no further time, keep our four eyes on the grand objective. I tried to send a determined look in the direction of my dog, she scratched her ear the way she does when she has fleas. "Off we go then", I said aloud, facing north in the general direction of our next objective, the small town of McKinleyville. Amy yanked her head, the dog-lead, and my arm south. There was obviously somewhere she wanted to go first.

It came as a bit of a surprise when she took me a few blocks south to the historic Carson Mansion : she is not usually so keen on architectural monuments. But I couldn't fault her choice. Carson Mansion may be a bit Disneyesque, a bit like a Gothic Filmset, but it is well worth a visit. Built in the 1880s as a family home for the timber magnate William Carson, the wood-framed, mongrel-styled, eighteen room villa is a monument to possibilities of Douglas Fir. You get the feeling that William Carson approached the construction of his home in a similar way to that which Iron-Mad Wilkinson approached the fabrication of his cast-iron gravestone back in eighteenth century England.

The mansion stayed in the Carson family until 1950 when it was bought by the Ingomar Club which, according to its website, "serves a dual mission of the restoration and preservation of the unique historical building and grounds of the Carson Mansion, while providing fine dining and social experiences for its members". Unfortunately one of the ways it preserves the building is by keeping people - and especially dogs - out of the grounds, so we were unable to do anything but look on from afar. But it created an interesting diversion - a good start to the new year.

LINKS :

North Coast Journal : Carson Mansion, The Inside Story.

The Ingomar Club, Eureka

Week 43 : Eureka To McKinleyville

2009-01-08T02:29:00.003-09:00

Refreshed by a Christmas holiday at home, Alan Burnett and his dog Amy re-start their mammoth virtual walk from Los Angeles to New York. This week they leave the Northern Californian city of Eureka behind them and head north to McKinleyville.

Week 42 : Fortuna To Humboldt Bay

2009-01-07T06:16:00.008-09:00

Amy and I are walking with renewed spirit in our steps : we are heading back to the Pacific Ocean. We walked through the outskirts of Fortuna, feeling sure that we could smell the salt of the sea. As we walked alongside the Eel River we gazed into the distance, trying to see the point where river meets ocean. But what we saw was a bridge and what we smelt was ice cream!

The bridge was Fernbridge which is the lowest crossing point of the Eel River and a listed National Historic Monument. When the 1,320 foot bridge was built in 1911, it was referred to as the world's largest all concrete span. It has worn well over the last century and stands out from the carpet of green fields and forests that surround it. The green fields provide a home for dairy cattle and these, in turn, provide the raw material for the Ferndale Dairy which produces ice-cream for a large area of Northern California. The local dairy farming industry is a legacy of Danish settlers who came to the area in the 1870s . They established a number of local co-operative creameries which quickly gained a reputation for both quality and innovation.

Ferndale City, which Amy and I could see in the distance, south of the River, became known as Cream City. I entertained Amy as we walked along by reading to her a list of notable innovations the local Creamerey had been responsible for : the introduction of the first butter wrapping and cutting machines, the first milk tank trucks and the first cow testing programme in California. Amy gave me one of those looks which implies that I have crossed the concrete bridge between harmless eccentricity and raving madness.

Fernbridge - as distinct from Ferndale City - is a tiny place with a population of just 59 souls. As its website says - blink and you will miss it. That may be the case if you are speeding north along Redwood Highway in your gas-guzzling SUV, it is not the case if you are a footsore man and his pawsore dog walking from Los Angeles to New York. There was a nice little wooden store where I had a beer and a little wooden bear where Amy had a wee.

We went on our way, and soon the aroma of ice-cream was replaced by that of cheese. We reached the town of Loleta. "Just a vowel shift away from temptation", I said to Amy but my literary joke fell on flat ears (well, actually, remarkably hairy, long, terrier ears). The small town of Loleta is the home of the Loleta Cheese Factory which ships its famous cheese throughout the world. Amy and I took a tour of the factory and Amy - who enjoys a bit of cheese as mach as the next dog - did a big tasting performance which seemed to please everyone and resulted in her being given even more cheese. Eventually I had to drag her away and we headed west out of town. I was anxious to see the ocean.

The back tracks north-west of Loleta cut through the low-lying, swampy estuary country and eventually merge into the sand-dunes. It was then, towards the end of the week, that Amy and I heard the crash of the waves once more and we knew that after far too many weeks, we were about to be re-united with the ocean. We walked to the very end of the promontory that forms the southern barrier to Humboldt Bay. Across the still waters we could see the City of Eureka, our destination. The problem was, how to get there? There were no boats, no way to cross the water and to retrace our steps would add another three or four days. We were tired and wanting our Christmas break. I looked down at Amy and she looked up at me. "What the hell, I said, it's a virtual journey after all. Let's fly!".

Week 41 : Pepperwood To Fortuna

2008-11-10T02:57:00.007-09:00

Amy and I were walking again, leaving the tiny settlement of Pepperwood in Humboldt County, Northern California behind and heading for Fortuna. In reality it has been weeks since we last took part in our mammoth trek from Los Angeles to New York City, but Amy - my soft-coated wheaten terrier - and myself inhabit a virtual world and are undertaking a virtual journey. So we can pick up where we left off, ignore the increasing gloom of the West Yorkshire streets and stride out once again in sunny California.

We were walking along the Avenue of the Giants, through mile after mile of majestic Redwood forests. For some weeks now we had been following the course of the Eel River as it sashayed its way towards the Pacific Ocean. The river was only a few hundred yards away from where Amy and I walked, but those tall trees masked its location and gave the impression that we we in the midst of an impenetrable forest. A few hundred yards in the opposite direction was Highway 101, but that again was hidden behind lines of massive trees. Amy, like any half-decent dog, liked trees. I could take them or leave them. I could work up almost as much enthusiasm for a tree once it had been processed into a decent-sized coffee table or a solid and respectable bar stool, than I could seeing it in its natural state. This attitude angered Amy no end and she decided I needed a lesson in environmental responsibility. So, as we passed the tiny settlement of Stafford, I was taken on a brief diversion to meet Luna.

Luna is a tree: a very famous tree. Between 1997 and 1999, this 600 year old 180 foot tall Redwood was the home of the environmental campaigner Julia Butterfly Hill. She had taken up residence in its upper branches in an attempt to save it from the loggers of the Pacific Lumber Company who wanted to turn it into coffee tables and bar stools. Her campaign attracted nationwide attention, she became famous. Songs were written about her and films were made of her. And after 738 days of tree-sitting Luna was saved.

It was a classic story of the individual set against the corporate giant, conscience versus profit. A few miles further along the road, I got a taste of the scale of the corporate giant as I entered the company town of Scotia, home of PALCO - the Pacific Lumber Company. Scotia was founded in 1863 and from the very beginning was a lumber town. Some of the early loggers came from Nova Scotia and decided to name to town to remind them of their northern homeland. Throught the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries, the town expanded in line with the importance of the logging industry. If you had visited Scotia thirty years ago you would have found a thriving company town where the scent of sawdust perfumed each new day. Visit Scotia now and you will find a company town coming to terms with bankruptcy. The once-mighty PALCO filed for bankruptcy in January 2007 and the fate of the company - and to a certain extent the town - is currently in the hands of the American courts. By contrast, Julia Butterfly Hill is thriving.

Just north of Scotia you cross the Eel River and enter the so-called "Warm-Hearted City" of Rio Dell. Whereas Scotia is declining, Rio Dell is still thriving and the bankrupt lumber town has made an application to merge with its northern neighbour. Compared to many of the places we have been to in recent weeks, Rio Dell is quite a substantial settlement with paved streets, coffee shops, burger bars and a brace of churches. Amy stopped for a sniff and I stopped for a beer before we once again headed north. Just before crossing the ever-twisting Eel River we took a brief detour to explore the famous Scotia Bluffs fossil fields. Fossils of all sorts of things have been found here, I explained to Amy, including turtles, starfish and even the odd whale bone. Initially she seemed quite enthusiastic about a spot of fossil hunting but once she realised that the creatures in question had turned to stone many centuries ago, she grew weary of the task and refused to carry on digging. That's the trouble with Wheaten Terriers, they have a short attention span.

The final part of our walk took us along the wide expanse of Highway 101 - flanked now by fields and scrub land rather than by forests - towards the city of Fortuna. The original name for Fortuna was "Slide" but such a name didn't fit in with the ambitions of its nineteenth century inhabitants so it was changed to Fortuna. Since then, in a further exercise in spin, it has tried to persuade the rest of the world that it is really called "Sunny Fortuna : The Friendly City" which is all very well but carries just a hint of protesting too much. There is nothing that the 10,497 citizens of Fortuna like more than a good festival and therefore the pint-sized city plays host to an Annual Rodeo, a Civil War Festival, a river canoe race, and - most spectacular of all - an Annual AutoXpo, "a car show fueled by vintage rock 'n' roll, pink poodle skirts, white bobby socks, sunglasses and cool cars that are hot!" Amy turned her nose up in disgust at such a spectacle, but I thought that it sounded like good fun. Unfortunately we were four months too late. To console ourselves we stopped off at the Fortuna branch of MacDonalds. Amy was far more impressed with that.

Week 40 : Miranda to Pepperwood

2008-08-06T04:11:00.007-09:00

Amy and I are walking again: walking north, walking along the Avenue of the Giants. Following the Eel River. Heading first for Eureka, then for Oregon, then Seattle, and then .... well let's not get ahead of ourselves.

We sat and looked at the map at the Myers Country Inn, a few miles north of Miranda. It's a smart place: wood verandas, floral prints, all that kind of stuff. All very North Californian. But Amy didn't seem impressed. "This place is No. 24 in the list of 101 things to do in Humboldt County", I told her. "God help the other 76", her look seemed to say.

We followed the road north skirting Humboldt Redwoods State Park. As you walk by this massive 52,000 acre park, you have to admire the American approach to going back to nature. The campgrounds are all carefully set out with well-kept paved roads for your SUV. There are showers and toilets, picnic tables, and even wi-fi networks for your computer. But, as Amy was quick to point out, despite all the promise of going back to nature and the days of the pioneers, dogs are not allowed in most places. It's because you might chase the Grizzly Bears and give them a fright I told her. She ignored me: she was too busy composing a letter of complaint to Governor Schwarzenegger. It wasn't all endless tree-scapes. Towards the end of the week was a bit of a high spot : the point at which the various forks of the Eel River join together. This is near a place called Duckett Bluff which is noted for .... well actually it's noted for very little other than its bluff. The following day we came to the settlement of Redcrest. Checking out the website to find the scale of the place I was intrigued to see an option which promised me "ten job vacancies in Redcrest, Ca". This sounded good, here was a town of some substance if it could offer ten job vacancies in these troubled economic times. Alas, I was wrong yet again. I should have been suspicious when I checked out the first on the list which was a vacancy for an Army Chaplain in Iraq!

Before the week came to an end we travelled through Engelwood, Holmes Flat, Shively and Pepperwood and there was hardly a wooden hut between them. "They love their names, these Americans", I commented to Amy. She sniffed at something and we walked on. Alone. With just the Eel River and the trees for company.

UPDATE

2008-08-06T04:04:00.002-09:00

Amy and I are back and walking again after too long a gap. We never stopped walking, we just stopped virtual walking. But we missed the sunshine, we missed the sea, we missed the wine ... and, in truth, we missed the trees.

So we take the story up again where we left off in the tiny Californian town of Miranda. So far we have walked some 600 miles. Only another 3,400 miles to go!

Week 39 : Richardson Grove to Miranda

2008-05-06T05:10:00.012-09:00

Amy and I left the tiny settlement of Richardson Grove and continued our walk north, following the course of the South Fork of the Eel River which would eventually lead us back to the Pacific Ocean. It had been weeks since we last saw the sea and we were beginning to miss the ever-changing vistas which only a coastline could provide. We were beginning to go a bit tree-crazy and I began to think lovingly of those islands which are completely bereft of trees. I mentioned this to Amy as we walked along Redwood Highway, but - thinking that I was going a little tree-crazy - she ignored me.

A few miles north of Richardson Grove you have two choices : the serious concrete and tarmac of Highway 101 - a serious road which hereabouts is called the Redwood Highway, and the more laid back, twist-here-a-bit, twist-there-a-bit, Benbow Drive. We took the latter which took us - after a suitable twist and turn - to the settlement of Benbow. Benbow has a golf course, an "RV resort" (it's a kind of up-market trailer park) and an Inn. I read to Amy from the brochure : "You would think you were in England instead of northern California when you first see the large Tudor-style Benbow Inn". She was somewhat confused by this and I could see her thinking "why would anyone walk the streets of England, imagining that they were walking the streets of Northern California, so that they could think they were in England instead of Northern California?". It was my turn to ignore her, so I carried on reading from the brochure. "The English theme continues as you step inside the lounge with its large antique fireplace flanked by comfortable sofas, antique chests, paintings, needlepoint, cherry-wood wainscoting, two grandfather clocks, potted green plants, and a splendid Oriental carpet. At tea time complimentary English tea and scones are served". "Can't you just imagine we were back in England?", I said to her as we gazed at the mock-Tudor facade. Her look said it all : "We are, you old fool".

The hotel was built back in 1926 and has a rich history. It was built by the Benbow family - nine brothers and sisters - and soon became a popular hide-away for the rich and famous. Guests have included the likes of Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable, Alan Ladd, Charles Laughton, Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald, Joan Fontaine, and Basil Rathbone. The Hotel and resort has everything a virtual traveller could desire and Amy was particularly taken with the "special doggie playground and the Salon'd Soggy Doggy™ Pet Wash which is complete with hot and cold water so fido can really be pampered".

The next place of note was Garberville, a small town a few miles north of Benbow. It was originally called Dogtown, I informed Amy, but the local dignitaries thought that it needed an image makeover so they renamed it after the local postmaster, a certain Jacob C Garber. Amy showed the local dignitaries just what she thought of them in the way only a dog can. The town is kind of interesting with its fine old Theatre, its town square with weekly Farmers' Market, and its two local newspapers. Kind of interesting, but - if truth be told - not very. Amy and I had a quick pint at the wonderfully named Branding Iron Saloon (OK, I had a pint and she had a dish of water) and then we left town. Just round the corner from Garberville is Redway which is even more kind of forgettable. So we did. And we left.

North of Redway there is very little but trees, but there are an awful lot of them. Again there is a choice of roads : you can take the new Highway 101 Freeway or you can wander up the old road which is now known as the Avenue Of The Giants. "It's world famous", I tell Amy. "It's included in that book, 1,000 Places To See Before You Die". "It's trees", Amy replied. Or at least she seemed to. Perhaps I am going a bit tree-crazy. We pass through Phillipsville which is even less of a town than Redway. We check out the local beauty spot which is known as the Chimney Tree. It turns out to be a tree in the shape of a chimney. "Pretty cool", I say to Amy. Her diagnosis confirmed she starts planning the rest of the trip as a solo walk. Clearly I am on the verge of being institutionalised.

By the end of the week we reach Miranda which sounds as though it should be a big and exciting community. It isn't. The town has a post office, two restaurants, a motel, a market, a Seventh-day Adventist church, a Latter-Day Saints Church and a small, rural high school (grades 8-12), a gas station, and a gift shop. Oh, I almost forgot. It's also got an awful lot of trees.

Week 38 : Dutchman's Flat To Richardson Grove

2008-03-10T07:23:00.007-09:00

As Amy and I walked through the almost endless Redwood forests of Northern California, we reflected on the start of our journey. According to the log, this was 38 weeks ago, but in reality it had taken us over a year to get to this point (virtual travel can bend time in a way which would bring a gleam to Albert Einstein's eye). Towards the end of the first week, we had made it out of central Los Angeles to the coast at Santa Monica Pier where we picked up California State Highway, heading north. And for most of the time since, Highway 1 had been our constant companion. Together we had seen good times and bad times, we had seen cities and mountains, we had seen rocky bays and we had seen trees. Boy had we seen trees. But this was the last week we would walk hand in hand with this great highway for at Leggett, State Highway 1 came to an end.

The town of Leggett, California is not much of a place. It is small - even by the standard of Californian towns - and has only two claims to fame : it is the northern-most point of Highway 1 and it has a tree you can drive through. Leggett is also pretty rare these days in that it doesn't have a Wikipedia entry. Discovering this, Amy and I both felt sorry for it and decided to remedy matters by writing the entry ourselves. The bad news for Leggett is that Amy drew the short straw and is currently engaged in penning something suitable. If I were Leggett, I wouldn't hold my breath.

The tree you can drive through is known as the Chandelier Tree and the hole through its trunk was carved by some enterprising Leggett resident some seventy years ago in the sure and certain belief that a town with two tourist attractions was better than a town with just one. It is a remarkably popular attraction still. It always comes as a surprise that in the sophisticated 21st century, people will still drive miles and miles simply to drive through a tree. There again, it maybe was just that having arrived in the town of Leggett and having been to see where Highway 1 comes to an end before lunch, these people had nothing to do for the rest of the day. Amy and I sympathised with their plight and we walked through the tree in solidarity with them. If you haven't a day to spare you can always watch one of the numerous videos of people driving through the tree which are available on the You-Tube site.

Leaving Leggett and Highway 1 behind, Amy and I felt lost and alone. Amy - who can never be accused of being over-loyal to one person or one geographical feature - insisted that we should find a new friend to follow. She found us the Eel River. By the time we met up with it at Leggett, the Eel River (or to be more precise the South Fork Eel River) had been flowing north towards the Pacific for many a mile, minding its own business. It is a nice river, a pleasant river, a friendly river (there is even an organisation called "Friends of the Eel River") : we decided to follow it to the sea. Having read that the river is home to rainbow trout, Chinook salmon, and steelheads, I suspect that Amy was interested in more than the views.

And so the river led us northwards, towards the sea. It was in no great hurry and it would be several weeks before it lost itself in the big ocean. Until then we would follow this blue ribbon through the green trees.

A few miles north of the end of Highway 1, something else came to an end : Mendocino County. Crossing County Lines has become quite a "milestone", and Humboldt County, which we had just entered, was our 12th County so far. Whilst the County is reasonably large, the population is reasonably small and it has a rural, out-of-the-way feel about it. It claims more artists per capita than anywhere else in California. It also claims to have more trees than anywhere else. The latter claim certainly appears to be correct.

Our week ended in the tiny settlement of Richardson Grove. Richardson Grove - named after the 25th Governor of California, Friend WIlliam Richardson - may seem to have all the magnetic attractions of Leggett without the tree and the road junction, but it does have one thing of note, a State Park. The Richardson Grove State Park is a jolly affair with numerous campsites and even more trees. It is true that, by now, Amy and I were getting just a little tired of trees, but these were majestic things, "well worth cocking a leg at" as Amy so charmingly put it.

Week 37 : Westport To Dutchman's Flat

2008-02-26T06:14:00.005-09:00

Amy and I set out from Westport knowing that the week ahead was going to be pivotal. During the last twelve months of our virtual journey there has been lots to virtually see. The detailed Google Earth photos have been brim-full of information : villages, towns, shops, and places of interest of all kinds. This week the Google Earth photos are brim-full of ... trees. Big trees and small trees and even more big trees. Mile after green mile of them. Don't get me wrong, they're lovely. Kind of majestic. Unchanging. Grand .......... (sorry I must have dozed off there) .... and just a tad boring.

"This week", I announced to Amy as we walked out of Westport, "we are making for Dutchman's Flat". She didn't ask me about our destination which was a good thing because I knew nothing about it. As far as I could gather it was nothing more than a couple of buildings in a clearing surrounded by ... trees. But we had the sea with us for the first part of the week and when you walk in sight of the coast there is always something to lift your spirits.

A few hours north of Westport we got to Wages Creek and went in search of something to lift our spirits. We found a campsite and a beach and, guess what, some trees. " Wages Creek Beach in Mendocino County, California is a really good place to spend some time" says a strange little website called Goingoutside.com. "Wages Creek Beach is a relaxing place and it sure is a nice beach. Among the things you can do near Wages Creek Beach are paddling, fishing, swimming, and boating, so there's no way to get bored". They certainly got most of that right although they forgot you could also throw pebbles into the water. And count trees. Anything but bored, Amy and I forced ourselves ever northwards.

Soon we reached Westport - Union Landing State Beach. There were fine coastal sunsets, lots of fish ... and trees. The main species of fish which can be caught around here are Day Smelt and Night Smelt. As you might imagine, the Day Smelt spawn during the day and the Night Smelt spawn at night. "Isn't that fascinating", I said to Amy, but she was otherwise engaged, chasing some fish through the surf.

After all that excitement, Amy and I settled into day after day of walking and trees. At times, the road left the coast and headed into the hills, but eventually it came back again. And then one day it didn't. We were about to leave the sea behind and cut inland. We were at the start of the Lost Coast.

I avoided telling Amy that we were at the start of the Lost Coast : she would only make silly jokes about how we had found it again. Instead we walked a few hundred metres away from the main road so that we could get a taste of, what is, one of the last coastal wildernesses in California. The 40 mile stretch of coast between Middle Rock in the south and Eureka in the north is so craggy and wild the normally robust Highway 1 has to skulk inland. It would have been adventurous and challenging to trek up the coast, but over recent months Amy and I had become addicted to Highway 1 and we were determined to follow it to its end.

So we headed inland. Into the trees. For a couple of days we saw nothing other than trees. I misquoted Ben Jonson to Amy : "I think that I will never see, anything other than a bloody tree". By the end of the week we reached Dutchman's Flat - or at least I think we did. There was a brief clearing in the forest, a barn, a house. It wasn't flat and there were no Dutchmen around. But for a precious few square yards there were no trees.

Week 36 : Fort Bragg to Westport

2008-02-04T15:36:00.001-09:00

I'd like to see the Skunk before we leave", I said to Amy as we prepared to head north out of Fort Bragg, California. She looked slightly surprised, but nevertheless grateful. She was used to a hefty tug on the leash whenever she tried to investigate the local wildlife. She was used to being dragged past squirrels and hoisted over dormant door-mice. Now here was her guide, philosopher, feeder and owner actually suggesting they go in search of a local critter. She had never eaten skunk and she tried to imagine what it might taste like. Her train of thought was interrupted by a great hiss of escaping steam. Her train of thought was interrupted by a train of iron and steel.

The California Western Railroad (a.k.a. The Skunk Train), like almost everything on this part of the Californian coast, was a child of the booming nineteenth century logging industry. It was built in 1885 to move the massive redwood logs to the Mendocino Coast sawmills from the rugged back country. Steam passenger services were started in 1904 but discontinued in 1925. During the latter half of the twentieth century its decline matched the decline of the logging industry. Until the 1960s it was operated as a division of the Fort Bragg Logging Mill but was later taken over by the Arizona-based Kyle Railways. By the 1990s, the logging days were in the past and the main purpose of the 40 mile line was as a tourist attraction, In August 1996, a group comprising entirely of local Mendocino Coast investors took over the railway and it has been thriving ever since.

I explained all this to Amy who didn't seem particularly interested. Indeed, when a train steamed into the depot and caught her off her guard, she launched a vicious attack on it and we had to scurry away and go in search of a more gentle and serene location. We followed the signposts and headed for what has been described as one of the most unique beaches in the world - Glass Beach. The story of the beach is interesting, almost inspirational, and therefore I didn't need much prompting to explain it to my dog (which was fortunate because I didn't get much prompting). Beginning in 1949, the area around Glass Beach became a public dump for the town of Fort Bragg. People dumped all kinds of refuse straight into the ocean, including old cars, and their household garbage, which of course included lots of glass. By the early sixties, some attempts were made to control what was dumped, and dumping of any toxic items was banned. Finally in 1967, the North Coast Water Quality Board established a new dump away from the ocean. Now, some 40 years later, Mother Nature has reclaimed the beach. Years of pounding wave action have deposited tons of polished glass onto the beach. There were quite a few tourists around taking photographs of the shining glass pebbles and Amy and I joined in the game. You had to be a bit selective with your field of focus in order to avoid the bits of old car tyres which were also in the habit of being washed up. But the beach is a fine place and a monument to natural recycling. Amy did her bit for the recycling movement by appearing by my side with what looked like a bit of dead seal in her mouth. We hurried on.

Later that same day we waded across Pudding Creek on the seaward side of the recently rebuilt trestle bridge which carries the old Mackerricher State Park road over the estuary. Our old friend Highway 1 was a little to the east but I had decided to stick to the coast as far as possible this week. For the next few days we would be travelling the length of Mackerricher State Park which, Amy was pleased to note, was one of the few dog-friendly State Parks in California. As we walked over the rocky headlands and across the numerous sandy coves, Amy was free to wander - as long as she kept within the legally required limit of a six foot leash. If the truth be told, at one stage, as we approached Lake Cleone, her leash extended to about six and a half feet for a few minutes and we spent the rest of the afternoon hiding behind bushes and living in dread of Governor Schwarzenegger swooping down on us in an helicopter gunship. The northern part of the Park is given over to the less than appropriately named Ten Mile Beach and Ten Mile Dunes. In fact they are seven miles in length from end to end : their name comes from the Ten Mile River which can be found at their northern end. The name of the river comes from the fact that it is ten miles north of the Noyo River which - quite appropriately this time - is ten miles to the south. As usual I explained all this to Amy and, as usual, she preferred to sniff things.

We could have crossed the river and kept our feet and paws dry if we had tracked about half a mile inland and crossed over the bridge that carries Highway 1 north. But Amy knew better and decided to risk wading across what she assumed was a shallow little stream : the result was that we got soaked and when we dripped and squelched into the tiny settlement of Seaside Creek we were a sorry site. The weather was kind, however, and we lay on the white sandy beach until we were dry. The sea and the land, nature and mankind all seemed to be in harmony on this delightful bit of coastline. I lectured Amy about this as we walked north, making several very valid points about love and universal friendship, harmony and mutual dependence. As the lecture drew to a close we approached a marble memorial stone which had been set adjacent to the road a few miles out of Seaside Creek. It celebrated the life of one Randy Fry, an enthusiastic diver and fisherman who died a few hundred yards west of this spot in August 2004. He was eaten by a Great White Shark!

We kept to the main highway as we travelled north and were eventually delivered to the beauty and tranquility of the Pacific Star Winery. Wine barrels line the cliff tops, maturing casks of glorious wine are stored in sea caves within the sound of breaking surf. The tasting rooms are open almost every day of the year and you can sample up to ten different wines - all for free. There are even picnic tables available so you can drink your wine, enjoy a picnic and watch the whales swim by. This really is a little bit of paradise on the Pacific coast. Amy behaved herself and sat quietly and watched the sun set over the Pacific. I just sat quietly and got slowly pickled. If you are ever travelling through Northern California it is worth stopping off at the Winery. If you are not, if you are just driving to work on the A616 through Keighley, it is worth making a detour. We spent the night at the charming Howard Creek Ranch Inn, which was remarkable both for its old world charm and for the fact that dogs were welcome guests.

Our week came to an end in the little village of Westport. A hundred years ago when lumber was king it had a population of over 20,000, now it is home to little more than 230 souls. It's a pleasant enough spot, but - as I suggested to Amy - one could easily get bored with so little to occupy yourself with. However she had spotted a poster advertising the village's famed annual chicken barbeque. She was smitten. If paradise for me had been that glorious winery a few miles down the road, paradise to Amy was a chicken barbeque. As our week came to an end we were searching the lists in Real Estate offices looking for a property midway between village and winery.

Week 35 : Albion To Fort Bragg

2007-12-07T04:28:00.000-09:00

Checking the map soon after Amy and I left the town of Albion, and noting that my next destination was likely to be the City of Fort Bragg, I wondered what was awaiting my faithful dog and myself. The name conjured up images of a large military camp, but whether this was fact or something out of an old episode of Sargent Bilko I couldn't decide. As we walked up the rugged and almost deserted North Californian coast I had difficulty envisaging giant runways, endless huts and all the other paraphernalia of a military encampment. As it turned out, I was right - but that discovery was seven days away.

As Amy and I walked through southern Mendocino County our constant companions were the giant redwood trees that give their name to this stretch of the California coast. A mature Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) ranges in height from 30 to 112 m (100 to 367 ft) and the diameter of the trunk measures up to 7.5 m (25 ft). The life span of the coast redwood is believed to be 2,500 years, but, as I explained to Amy, nobody is quite sure as they have managed to outlive anyone attempting to study them. Amy showed all her usual interest in my occasional road-side lectures, clearly illustrating how she often is mistaken for a dumb animal. "Coast Redwoods have the ability to sprout from the root-crown following death of the main stem", I continued. "So have I", her look seemed to say. "It is tolerant of flooding and its bark is resistant to fire", I continued reading from my handout from the Mendocino Redwood Company. "The distribution of the Coast Redwood currently totals approximately 1.74 million acres", I announced as we walked in the shade of these magnificent trees. "Over 350,000 of these acres (550 square miles) are in publicly owned entities such as state and national parks and other public preserves". Amy yawned as stopped to test the trees resistance to dog-pee. "The remaining acres of the redwood forests are owned by a variety of private entities, 1.2 million acres (1,875 square miles) owned by seven industrial timber companies, and the balance of 200,000 acres (310 square miles) owned by private non-industrial landowners". Amy seemed to come out of her lecture-induced stupor and for a moment I thought I had captured her attention with one interesting fact or another. But she has simply seen some critter or another running through the undergrowth.

By mid-week we had reached the small town of Mendocino. Whilst you might be forgiven for thinking this is the County Town it is not - it takes its name from the County rather than the other way around. It is home to just 824 people and was originally a small logging town called Meiggsville. With the decline of the logging industry in the first part of the twentieth century it fell into decline but eventually re-invented itself as an artists' colony and home to both a music and a film festival. As Amy and I walked the little streets that stretch out onto the headland which thrusts out into the Pacific Ocean, I realised that there was something familiar about the place. As I remarked to Amy, you felt as though you had been there before. It was only later, as I was reading a local guidebook whilst enjoying a pint of Newcastle Brown at Patterson's Pub, that I realised that this was where that never-ending TV series "Murder She Wrote" was filmed. I recalled endless days back in England when the TV set was turned on in the background in order to provide a little company when re-runs of the show would appear almost back-to-back. As far as I recall, the stories for all two hundred and odd episodes were the same, but the scenery was nice. And here Amy and I were - looking out at the same scenery. Any minute now, Angela Lansbury would walk around the corner and stop to give Amy a loving pat on the head. Any moment now. an antique Civil Way sword would be thrust into my back and the usual cast of characters would seek out my murderer. Finishing my beer quickly, we left town and headed north.

We headed north to more trees, more rocky coastal points and tree-lined gulches, more sandy bays and isolated lighthouses and we eventually arrived at what, in these parts, is something spectacularly different - another road. It had been getting on for two weeks since we had seen a decent road other than the Shoreline Highway which had been our second home for months. There were little streets here and there darting to the left and right, but none of these were a proper, grown-up road - a road which actually took you somewhere different to the relentless northern quest of the Shoreline Highway. The road in question was the Fort Bragg - Willits Road (California State Route 20). As we walked up the Shoreline Highway we were passing the western end of the road. If we chose to abandon the coast and follow it east we would finish up in Emigrant Gap, Nevada, within spitting distance of Lake Tahoe and Reno. Both Amy and I agreed to resist the temptation to head east. Before taking that momentous change in direction we has another two States to see, not to mention Fort Bragg.

We headed into Fort Bragg the following day, and quickly we discovered that this was not the military base that we expected. There is a massive US Military Base at Fort Bragg, but that is Fort Bragg North Carolina. The one link between the two is that they were both named after Confederate Army General Braxton Bragg. But Fort Bragg in California had closed down by the 1870s leaving only the name and a thriving saw-mill and logging port behind. And now, of course, most of the logging industry is gone as well and Fort Bragg is building a new identity as a tourist town. It had been a long week and Amy and I were looking forward to a few days' rest and relaxation. Fort Bragg seemed like a good spot. Amy was particularly keen as it was one of those wonderful American "dog-friendly" towns. So we booked into a small dog-friendly hotel and settled down to discover what delights were on offer.

Week 34 : Manchester To Albion

2007-12-05T11:49:00.000-09:00

Amy and I left the small township of Manchester behind us and set forth in search of Albion". I realise that this sounds like the opening sentence of some early Victorian social reformers' account of his quest for the soul of the nation, but bear with me. The Manchester in question is the small township of Manchester in Mendocino County, California. Albion is a town some 25 miles further north up the coast. And Amy is my six year old soft-coated wheaten terrier. Together we are 34 weeks into a five and a half year virtual walk from Los Angeles to New York. Together we are sampling some of the delights of rural America without leaving the discomfort of our own cold, grey home.

One of the things about walking along this stretch of the Northern California coast is that there aren't many choices to make. There is only one decent road - Highway 1 - which heads north in one direction and south in the other. As long as you keep the sea to your left you can't go far wrong. It can get a bit boring at times but there is always something interesting to distract your attention.

Take, for example, the proceedings of the Irish Beach Architectural Design Committee. Irish Beach is a "second home and rental development" located about four miles north of Manchester (remember, this is Manchester California, we're not talking about Salford here). Such developments are springing up all over coastal California as city-dwellers go in search of idyllic country retreats. Government planning laws in the States are nothing like as strict as they are in the UK, but this does not mean that you can build what you want. In place of the Local Planning Department sits the Architectural Design Committees - collections of local citizens who decide what you can build, where you can build it, and - in some cases - what colour you can paint your front door. So the next time you get fed up with your local bureaucracy, have a read of the Committee Minutes and the extended discussions about the design, size and location of the sign outside the office of William Moore and be thankful that you are not a resident of this particular piece of the Land Of The Free.

A few miles further north is the Inn At Victorian Gardens, a very select little establishment which caters for the type of guest who likes good food, fine wines, tasteful furniture, spectacular coastal views and a generous dollop of American eccentricity. If you have a few minutes to spare, take a look at their website and, in particular, the Flash Presentation. It's a mixture of soft-focus, grainy art-photos and verse. For example, describing the overall ethos of the Inn, the poem states : "Time is taken / from the hands of an antique clock / and shaken out like fine linen / to remove its kinks". By the time you have read it all you are not sure whether it is rather good or just plain tacky. Fearing that she may have been "shaken out like fine linen", Amy was not keen to stay, she we kept on walking.

The next little town we came to was a small town of some 200 inhabitants and the wonderful name of Elk. Originally it had been called Greenwood, but then someone discovered another place with the same name somewhere else in the State, so they changed the name to Elk. Elk was a lumber town, its fortunes were built on the destruction of the great Redwood forests to the east of the coastal strip. The timber was cut at the steam-driven sawmill in Elk and then shipped out from the wharf. When the redwood ran out, Elk went into decline and by the 1930s had become a ghost town. It only began to slowly come back to life in the 1960s and 70s when this part of the coast was beginning to open itself up to recreational use. Now it has a generous collection of small hotels, inns and - for some unknown reason - massage parlours.

Our final destination for the week - the small town of Albion - was also a lumber town. The town was founded in 1853 when a retired English sea captain, William Richardson, built a saw mill there, the first saw mill on the Redwood Coast. Like most of its neighbours, the town has now lost its timber trade, but a lasting reminder to the power of wood in this part of California can be found in the wonderful wooden bridge that carries the coast highway over the Albion River. The bridge was built in 1944 when steel and concrete were in short supply. It is the last remaining wooden bridge on the coastal highway and has now become a tourist destination in its own right.

Week 33 : Iversen Point To Manchester

2007-11-15T05:15:00.000-09:00

"It's a big place, America", I said to Amy as we walked up Highway 1 just north of Iversen Point. She ignored me. You will have probably gathered by now that Amy ignores me a lot of the time. You probably are wondering why I keep trying to engage her in conversation. Well let me tell you, when you are nine months into a five and a half year walk across the American continent with only a soft-coated wheaten terrier for company, you would try and make conversation with her.

Returning to the point I was trying to make, I mused - somewhat rhetorically I must admit - "how do they come up with names for all the places?" I said this as we walked passed Schooner Gulch. There is a State Beach here and Amy soon drew my attention to a notice which provided an answer to my question. It is said that Schooner Gulch got its name from a story in which a schooner was sited, one evening, stranded on the beach in the mouth of the gulch, yet in the morning showed no evidence of being there. "Spooky", I said to Amy. She continued to play dumb.

"OK, clever-clogs", I said as we passed Galloway Creek, "what about this place?" She found another notice which proclaimed that one John Galloway was the first recorded occupant of the area. John was born in Scotland and occupied an area of Schooner Gulch between 1866 and 1868, which was largely used as a milling operation for timber.

A little further up the road we came across a signpost pointing to Bowling Ball Beach. There were no handy noticeboards here, so I challenged her yet again. This time she pulled me down to the beach. When I saw the large round boulders lined up along the line of breaking surf I knew that she had won yet again.

As we continued to walk north I reflected on the power of information. How could Amy know the answer to all these questions. We reached the Rollerville Cafe just south of the "city" of Point Arena. Hungry and thirsty, I tried to enter. Amy drew me away (she can have a powerful pull on a leash). Later I tried Googling the Rollerville Cafe but the only hit I got was for an Environmental Health Report which listed a number of critical food and hygiene citations. "Proper methods to sanitize utensils, equipment, or work surfaces are not being followed", I read. And Amy somehow know about this. Spooky.

It was an odd day. It felt as if there was something in the air. I was relieved to get to Point Arena for a rest. The trouble was, armed with our access to the Environmental Health website, it was difficult to find any place to eat, drink and sleep which was free from criticism. "Too much information", I said to Amy, "can be a dangerous thing"

Point Arena is a strange little place. With a population of under 500 it is one of the smallest incorporated cities in the State of California. Small it may be, but it has a certain style about it. For example, the city has a Poet Laureate, one Fionna Perkins. She writes poems to mark important local occasions. Her are a couple of verses from her latest offering:

A DAY TO REMEMBER

What if global warming
brings our Pacific Ocean
washing new shores halfway
up Main Street hill, no
longer where it is now out
at the Cove? People with
good credentials are making
such predictions.

Point Arena's response: Tut!
Tut! Henny Penny, the sky’s
not falling; it just has a
hole in it, and what can we
do to help with the patching?

"You see what I mean about something in the air or perhaps in the water" I say to Amy. Later I discovered what that something might be. The Wikipedia article on Point Arena states "Point Arena is associated with the hippy and subsequent counterculture groups. Its reported economy is largely geared toward servicing the summertime tourist industry, while a large part of Point Arena's non-tax-paying economy is based on the cultivation and exportation of marijuana.[citation needed]". Always willing to help a friend in need I went in search of a citation. The best I could find was an extract from the City Council minutes which report on how one city employee had found a fully functioning marijuana plot on the city council parking lot. Crazy place, crazy people.

Perhaps there was something in the air because I was suddenly gripped by the desire to wander. For weeks now Amy and I had been heading north in a straight line, sticking to the main highway, oblivious of all tempting side roads and paths. "Let's go to Arena Cove and then to the Lighthouse", I said a little too loudly. Amy didn't seem to object and therefore we struck out for the coast.

Arena Cove is a pretty little place with a wooden pier and some fishing boats. According to the Muncipal Pier website, you can fish off the pier, launch a boat off the pier, sunbathe on the pier, go to the loo on the pier, park your car on the pier, watch birds from the pier ..... but under no circumstances can you walk a dog on the pier. Amy and I struck a defiant blow for personal freedom by walking along the pier. And then we run away quickly before anyone spotted us. A few hundred yards north of the cove we sat on the beach and looked out to sea. "Did you know", I said to Amy, "that this is the closest point on mainland America to the islands of Hawaii?" She was unimpressed. In fact she was asleep.

I decided that we should continue our wanderings by cutting across the sand dunes and scrub land in the direction of the lighthouse which stands on the coast a mile or so north of Arena Cove. The first Point Arena Lighthouse was constructed in 1870, but came to a sad end in 1906 when it was badly damaged by the great earthquake. The United States Lighthouse Service contracted with a San Francisco based company to build a new lighthouse which would withstand any future earthquakes and this began operation in 1908, nearly 18 months after the quake. It stands 115 feet tall, and features a 1st Order Fresnel Lens, over six feet in diameter and weighing more than six tons. The lighthouse continued in service until the 1970s when it was replaced by an automated aircraft-type beacon which had been installed on the balcony tower. The lighthouse building and the keepers' cottages were taken over by a non-profit making organisation - the Point Arena Lighthouse Keepers - which was dedicated to preserving the site and making it open to visitors. Today you can stay there, eat there, get married there and probably get buried there. It is a spectacular setting and well worth a detour from the main highway.

On leaving the lighthouse we cut east across the sands looking for a shortcut back to the main highway. We had to wade through water and hike through surprisingly tall sand dunes but eventually we made it back to Highway 1 - which for some reason here in the north is called South Highway 1 - on the outskirts of Manchester. Not the home of King Cotton, not the mighty city of Manchester in the UK. No, this is the town of Manchester in California. It's an incorporated town which means it has about four buildings. There is no night life and precious little day life. The fame of the town is down to one, single topiary shrub, which is a landmark and a major tourist attraction. People driving up and down the Highway stop their cars and take endless photographs of the bush. Amy decided to pay her own homage to it : following which we quickly headed out of town to find a place to hide.

Week 32 : Sea Ranch To Iversen Point

2007-11-13T02:04:00.000-09:00

As Amy and I walked north from our unofficial overnight camping spot on Pebble Beach, we began to recognise the sheer scale of the Sea Ranch project. This massive private development extends for more than 10 miles along the North California coastline taking in some 3.500 acres of prime land. What was once rugged coastland has been tamed and tarmac’d. What was once wild is now Galleon’s Reach, Mariners Drive and Albatross Close. It was quite sad and we stepped out with renewed energy, anxious to rid ourselves of the fakery. But the advertising boards proclaimed “The Sea Ranch …. As Far As The Eye Can See” and they were not wrong. For mile after mile the carefully planned rises, closes, reaches and drives split off from Highway 1 like slightly malevolent tendrils. We weren’t rid of it until we crossed the Gualala River leaving Sonoma behind and entering Mendocino County.

Mendocino County is big : weighing in at some 3,510 square miles. The Guide Book says that it takes more than 3.5 hours to drive from one corner of the county to the other : it will take Amy and I a lot longer than that to walk up the picturesque Mendocino coast. More than half the of the county is owned by either national and multi-national timber companies or are State or Federally controlled forests which are also logged by the large timber companies. Over recent years Mendocino County has seen increasing battles between the natural resource extractors, developers and people who have come to the county to escape urban blight, density, crime and lack of natural open space.

Our introduction to this new County came as we crossed the Gualala River and entered the small town of the same name. According to the town website, some people call it gwa-LA-la, but the natives call it wa-LA-la. This comes from the Kashaya Pomo Indian phrase, "ah kha wa la lee" which means, "Where the water flows down". The town slogan is “Gualala … where you can fall asleep to the sound of the sea”. The promise seems to have struck a chord with migrating whales who often bask on the sand bluffs near the mouth of the Gualala River. Whales are bif business around here, there is a Whale Watch Inn and an annual Whale and Jazz Festival. Amy suggested it would make a suitable location for her to extend her dietary experiences but I persuaded her that eating whale steaks might get her run out of town.

Looking for a suitable alternative for dinner I checked out the listing of places to eat on the town website only to discover that all the restaurants and hotels seemed to only serve breakfast. Whether this is due to some ancient Pomo custom or to the fact that the website is incomplete we never discovered. We did discover however, just north of the town, the Bones Roadhouse. Amy said this sounded a very superior kind of place and she settled down to Kielbasa sausage, BBQ chicken, marinated turkey breast, not forgetting their “lip-smackin’ sides”.

We were now in Redwood country, indeed, this bit of the coast is often known as the Redwood Coast. Confusingly the particular species of redwood (or sequoia sempervirens) found on the Redwood Coast is the Coast Redwood! The trees are famed for their mighty size and great beauty. They also have the very useful capacity of being resistant to decay and fairly resistant to fire as well. This natural resistance came in very useful during the fire that followed the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. P. H. Shaughnessy, Chief Engineer of the San Francisco Fire Department wrote:

"In the recent great fire of San Francisco, that began April 18th, 1906, we succeeded in finally stopping it in nearly all directions where the unburned buildings were almost entirely of frame construction and if the exterior finish of these buildings had not been of redwood lumber, I am satisfied that the area of the burned district would have been greatly extended”.

North of Gualala we entered a land of secluded bays, rocky headlands and small isolated communities. One such was Anchor Bay which is about midway between Gualala and Iversen Point. Like many small rural communities in America the history of the town is the history of one or two families. The history of such communities is also remarkably short and can be retold in the reminiscences of just a few generations. The Anchor Bay website explains about the history of the settlement in the following terms:

"Anchor Bay, as a name, was not used until about 1915", recalls Jim McNamee. "Young Dave Berry, Dave Berry's son, was fixing up the place. His father was getting old. He called it Anchor Bay. He put up the sign and the anchor which he hand carved. Berry bought the place from a man named Meagher. Berry came to Gualala from Fort Ross. He had a blacksmith shop in Gualala for quite a few years. Originally he came from Switzerland. Berry also had a blacksmith shop in the building which was the pottery in Anchor Bay. They had pottery, bricks, alot of things made out of clay, but it wasn't very good clay. It came from where the bulk of the Mar Vista buildings are now."

As we have discovered so many times so far on this brief trip of ours, one of the great strengths of the internet is to collect and preserve such memories. The virtual traveller who uses the web as his or her vehicle of discovery becomes a multi-dimensional traveller : travelling in both time and space. As I explained to Amy, as we wondered along the uncrowded highway, we had almost achieved the ancient dream of time-travel. She was not really interested. She was barking at a basking seal. She got quite a shock when the seal barked back.

We ended the week at Iversen Point. If that sounds like a big important place it is not. It’s a name on a map and little else other than some rocks, some surf and some redwood trees. “Get used to it”, I said to Amy, “we’ve a lot more of this to come before we see the city lights again”.

Week 31 : Fort Ross To The Sea Ranch

2007-11-06T14:22:00.001-09:00

In the back of my mind I know that once I get to Seattle I will have about four years - at my current rate of progress - without site of the sea as I head across this vast country. Thus, for the time being, I like to keep the Pacific Ocean in view as I travel north. The sea acts as my guide. I can almost smell my way north - although this might be Amy's somewhat cavalier approach to personal cleanliness rather than the tangy taste of salt 'n sea. This bit of Northern California is cove-land. During the space of just one week we were to pass through Timber Cove, Stillwater Cove, Ocean Cove, Gerstle Cove, Stump Beach Cove, Fisk Mill Cove and Horseshoe Cove. Add to this a fair sprinkling of gulches and a pinch of points and you have our itinerary for the week.

At the first of our Coves we found the magnificent Timber Cove Inn with its dramatic location and slightly quirky design. You can take a virtual tour around the Inn on their website. You can also catch a glimpse of the local landmark which is a large carved totem pole which dominates the headland. If you read the reviews of the hotel it is clear it is a "love it or hate it" kind of place. Sadly, Amy and I didn't get the chance to tip the balance one way or another because it was too expensive for our resources and anyway they would not accept pets.

We had no better luck at the next Cove north. Stillwater Cove Regional Park looked suitably rustic. You can pitch your tent for nothing and pets are welcome. We could easily get around the rule that dogs had to be on leads less than six foot in length. The sticking point, however, was that dogs had to present rabies certificates. Amy flatly refused, pointing out that if she didn't demand a certificate off the park warden stating he didn't have AIDS, therefore why should he demand a rabies certificate off her. The result of all this was that once again we had to pitch our tent next to a bluff cove and hope that the wind didn't blow us into the sea.

The next day we entered Salt Point State Park and came face-to-face with the mighty trees which would become very much part of our journey through northern California over the coming months. As the terrain rises northeast of Highway One, coastal brush and grasslands blend into lush growths of bishop pine, Douglas, fir, madrone, tan oak, groves of second growth redwood. Amy - who likes trees - was in her seventh heaven. I simply stood back and reflected whether I would ever see a tree as lovely as a poem.

For the rest of the week, the road meandered north with the sea to the left and the forest to the right. You got the feeling that you were leaving civilisation behind, that you were heading into the wilderness. And then, at the end of the week, we came to The Sea Ranch. The Sea Ranch is "the ultimate in Northern California Coastal Living". It is a massive "second-home" community serving the people of San Francisco and other major urban centres. It has its own airport, championship golf course and award-winning architecture.

The houses are supposed to blend in with the landscape so that the development will "live lightly on the land". The overall plan incorporates a set of building guidelines that require homes to be designed and sited to blend all structures onto the natural setting and minimize the visual as well as physical impact upon the landscape. The result, I must say, reminded me of those concrete bunkers which were thrown up on the south coast of England during the second world war. They blended in with the natural environment - they had to do or get blown up. It's odd thinking of such things here on the isolated California coast where Film Directors, dot-com millionaires and investment bankers come to find escape. It was posh and in places it was pretty. But it wasn't real and neither Amy nor I felt any desire to sink roots and live lightly on the land here.

Week 30 : Bodega Bay to Fort Ross

2007-10-27T05:25:00.000-09:00

Amy and I continue up the west coast, flirting with Californian wine country to our right and the the ever-cooling waters of the Pacific to our left. Just north of Bodega Bay is Salmon Beach where the waters of the Salmon Creek meets the Pacific. This spot is noted for its good surf. According to the Wannasurf website, the wave quality is good and the wave type is "beach-break" (whatever that means). I tell Amy but she is not impressed. "The swell starts working at three foot and can hold up to ten foot" I say. She is still not impressed. "And it is very sharky, with several attacks here in the last ten years". I have her full attention at last, but whether she views the promised sharks with fear and trepidation or as a potential source of protein I am not sure. We watch the surfers for a little while but nothing very exciting happens and nobody is eaten by a shark so we move on.

We are travelling along the wonderfully scenic Sonoma Coast State Beach : 16 miles of rugged headlands and craggy coastline which, according to the State Park website, "offers a wealth of opportunities for wholesome fun". I suggested to Amy that the concept of "wholesome fun" was possibly a contradiction in terms, but she was unmoved by such displays of clever wordplay. She has seen a sign listing some of the wildlife native to this coastal area and it included squirrels, rabbits, foxes and skunks. The first three are old friends of hers and amongst her favourite things to chase. She had never come across skunks but is confident that they will be equally fun to terrorise. I don't enlighten her : it will serve her right for ignoring my witty repartee.

The northern edge of the State Beach is where the Russian River flows down to the sea. Near the mouth of the river is the tiny town of Jenner and just outside the town is the River's End Inn and Restaurant. Amy and I stopped for lunch. She settled down to the Duck Confit Sandwich (slow roasted duck served with a cranberry-cherry chutney and set on a toasted on ciabatta roll served with fries) whilst I had the Fish and Chips in Ale Batter. The brochure states that the restaurant caters particularly for people who are "searching for renewal", which, I assume, is some kind of California-speak for "people who are hungry". There are only a hundred or so citizens of Jenner but it has a community website which many a big city would be proud of. I was able to get up-to-date on local news (so sad to hear about the bridge to the Community Centre), access the database of local recipes and even sign an on-line petition to the Attorney-General of California over something or other.

What with the Russian River and, a little further north, the Russian Gulch, you get an idea about one important influence on this part of the Californian coast. However, it was not until Amy and I reached the end of our week's walk, at Fort Ross, did we discover the full extent of the Russian influence on this bit of California.

The settlement of Ross, the name derived from the word for Russia (Rossiia) was established by the Russian - American Company, a commercial hunting and trading company chartered by the Tsarist government, with shares held by the members of the Tsar’s family, court nobility and high officials. Trade was vital to Russian outposts in Alaska, where long winters exhausted supplies and the settlements could not grow enough food to support themselves. Alexander Baranov, the manager of the Russian-American Company, directed his chief deputy, Ivan Alexandrovich Kuskov, to establish a colony in California as a food source for Alaska and to hunt profitable sea otters. After several reconnaissance missions, Kuskov arrived at Ross in March of 1812 with a party of 25 Russians, many of them craftsmen, and 80 native Alaskans from Kodiak and the Aleutian Islands. After negotiating with the Kashaya Pomo people who inhabited the area, Kuskov began construction of the fort.

Records show that after 1812 there were from twenty-five to one hundred Russians and from fifty to one hundred twenty-five Native Alaskans at the settlement at any given time. The number of the Kashaya, who came to work as day laborers, varied with the seasons. Records indicate the presence of only a few Russian women in the colony (the most prominent of whom was the wife of the last manager); "creole" and Alaskan women were somewhat more numerous. However, during the life of the colony, a number of Russians and Alaskan natives married California Indian women—Kashaya, Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo—with the consent of tribal and Company authorities. The children at the settlement, who made up about a third of the residents by the mid-1830s, were almost all considered as "Creoles," born of these ethnically mixed unions.

By 1841 the settlement's agricultural importance had decreased considerably, and the local population of fur-bearing marine mammals had been depleted, so the fur trade was no longer lucrative. Following the formal trade agreement between the Russian-American Company in Sitka and Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver, the settlement at Fort Ross was not needed to supply the Alaskan colonies with food. The Russian-American Company consequently abandoned the settlement, and it was sold to John Sutter, a Californian entrepreneur of German-Swiss-French origin.

Little now remains of this little bit of Russia in deepest America other than the old fort which has been well preserved. Amy and I had now been on the road for 30 weeks. We had seen Southern California and part of Northern California - just as we had expected. But we have now also seen a little bit of Russia, a welcome if unexpected treat.

Week 29 : Tomales Bay To Bodega Bay

2007-10-03T01:57:00.000-09:00

Amy and I started our week by continuing our walk up the east side of Tomales Bay. "Bay" is a misleading description as it is a long flooded valley rather than a traditional seaside bay. But it is beautiful, and when the sun is setting there are some delicious views across the strip of calm water towards the low hills of the peninsular. You can get a good impression of the calm and tranquility of this wonderful little spot by looking at the video clip of the Tule Elk Preserve which is part of the "Sunrise Earth" on-line project. But as you listen to the birds singing and watch the elk peacefully grazing along the banks of Tomales Bay, just remember that the mighty San Andreas Fault line dissects the bay. Calm and tranquil it may be, but it has a greater capacity for destruction than anything so far cooked-up by mankind.

Leaving the coast behind we follow the old route of the North Pacific Coast Railroad inland, heading for the small town of Tomales (population 210). This place has been known as "the beautiful little town of Tomales" for over 100 years. Little seems to have changed and the locals seem proud of the fact. If you visit Tomales.com you learn that the local population is made up of "a mix of third generation ranching families of Irish, Swiss and Italian descent, and a diverse group of new families attracted to the quieter pace, family-oriented values that Tomales offers". Tomales boasts that it is the only community in Marin County that has retained its turn of the century rural community integrity. "Our community pride is contagious", declares the website and I told Amy about the claim. She doesn't always hear very well (it's all that fur in her ears) but she obviously picked up the word "contagious" because she stepped very carefully until we hit the far side of town.

Just north of Tomales you come to The William Tell House which claims to be Marin County's Oldest Saloon. It's an odd little place which seems to stick out from the background scenery like a sore thumb (or given the legend behind the name, like a sore head). The website has a section headed "history" so I turned to that to find out about the history of the saloon. Unfortunately it just gives you the history of William Tell rather than the story behind the saloon which, I a sure, would have been much more interesting. Equally, the website has a section entitled "Beer" which simply has a list 22 different wines which are available. Sounds like an odd kind of saloon to me - no idea what William Tell would have made of it.

A few miles further north and you cross the County Line, leaving Marin County behind and entering Sonoma County. Sonoma is the southwestern county of California's Wine Country region with over 250 wineries. Agriculture of all kinds is the main business of the county : in 2002 Sonoma County ranked as the thirty-second county in the United States in agricultural production. Amy and I were looking forward to walking its length : for Amy agricultural land means wildlife to chase after, for me wineries mean happiness.

After crossing the County Line, Highway 1 turns westwards and in a couple of miles passes through the small township of Valley Ford. In the nineteenth century the future of Valley Ford looked bright. It was an important railroad stop and it was beginning to gain a reputation as a commercial and industrial centre. There is a small website dedicated to the history of Valley Ford which contains an extract from the 1877 book "Historical and Descriptive Sketch of Sonoma County, California" by Robert A. Thompson.

"In 1876 P. E. Merritt opened a new grocery store in the place. J. Parry opened a tin shop, and John Hunter opened a meat market. With her railroad facilities, fine climate, and rich and productive surrounding country, why should not Valley Ford continue to grow and prosper?"

But it didn't. In 2007, with a population of just 60, it is smaller than it was 130 years earlier. The railroad is long gone and the main street is given over to a few craft shops and galleries. You pass through it without a second glance. Somehow, Valley Ford missed the bus to the twenty first century.

We continue along the main road towards the coast and by the end
of the week reach Bodega Bay. There is a neat link between Bodega Bay and Capitola through which Amy and I passed some twelve weeks ago. If you have been following our adventures carefully you will remember that an invasion of birds at Capitola gave AlfredHitchcock the idea for the film "The Birds". Wanting a remote but beautiful coastal location to film the story he came north to Bodega Bay. It's a beautiful spot, with its fishing boats and rocky coastline. It made a suitable spot to celebrate the end of our week's walking. So, one sunny afternoon, Amy and I sat on a wooden jetty and watched the birds circle overhead. I turned to Amy and said : "I wonder what would happen if ....", but that's another story.

Week 28 : Olema To Tomales Bay

2007-09-24T23:15:00.000-09:00

Heading north from Olema, Amy and I stride out in the direction of Point Reyes Station. I am driven by the prospect of discovering more about this delightful corner of California, Amy is driven by the hope that where there is a Station a train cannot be far behind. If you look at a map of California, Point Reyes Peninsular looks like one of those annoying cuts you get on your finger, where the skin is partly lifted off leaving a painful gash deep into the flesh. Point Reyes Station sits at the very end of the gash. Thus when you get to the town you have a decision to make : you can head up the west side of Tomales Bay and thrill to the scenic splendour of Point Reyes National Seashore or keep to the east and the familiar security of Route 1. I wanted to go west (it was supposed to be more beautiful), Amy wanted go east (it was shorter and didn't necessitate swimming across the Bay at the northern end of the peninsular). We couldn't agree so we spent some time investigating the town of Point Reyes Station.

It gets its name from the narrow gauge North Pacific Coast Railroad which was built in the 1870s to carry redwood lumber, local dairy and agricultural products, and passengers from the north of Marin County to a pier at Sausalito (which connected the line via ferry to San Francisco). The line was eventually closed down in the 1930s and now lives on in the name of Point Reyes Station and in the predominant architectural style of main street. The trains may be long gone but if you close your eyes and breath in heavily through your nose you can occasionally catch the unmistakable whiff of steam and engine grease.

This part of California has constant reminders of that infamous day in April 1906 when the earth began to move leaving behind death, devastation and the the legend of the great San Francisco Earthquake. The epicentre of the quake was in the Point Reyes peninsular but most of the devastation was further south. But the quake did have a dramatic impact on the railroad. A contemporary account takes up the story. "At Point Reyes Station at the head of Tomales Bay the 5:15 train for San Francisco was just ready. The conductor had just swung himself on when the train gave a great lurch to the east, followed by another to the west, which threw the whole train on its side. The astonished conductor dropped off as it went over, and at sight of the falling chimneys and breaking windows of the station, he understood that it was the Temblor. The fireman turned to jump from the engine to the west when the return shock came. He then leaped to the east and borrowing a Kodak he took the picture of the train here presented.' (From 'The 1906 California Earthquake', David Starr Jordan, Editor, 1907, A.M. Robertson, San Francisco

The fear and destruction of 1906 put our argument into perspective, so Amy and I decided to settle our differences. We would take the road up the east side of Tomales Bay. In return, Amy agreed that we could spend the night at the Point Reyes Station Inn which advertises itself as a "newly built Inn with an old world character". She pointed out that the website said "well behaved pets welcome". A asked what significance that had for her. And so we fell out again.

While Amy sulked I read the local weekly newspaper. The Point Reyes Light is justifiably proud of its history. It is one of the few weekly newspapers to ever win a Pulitzer Prize. In 1979, when the paper's circulation was only 2,750, it received the Pulitzer Gold Medal for Meritorious Public Service as a result of a series of exposès and editorials about the Synanon cult. The cult was not only abusing its tax-exempt status, it had also turned to violence in an attempt to silence critics. The violence culminated in October 1978 when Synanon members tried to murder a lawyer by planting a 4.5-foot rattlesnake in his mailbox. The lawyer was bitten but survived, and The Light was the first to reveal that cult leaders had orchestrated the attack. I found no reference to what had happened to the snake so I quickly went and found Amy who was sniffing around in the hotel garden.

The following day we continued our journey north. The southern end of Tomales Bay is a marshland but as you head north the bay widens and becomes more attractive. With its calm blue waters and gentle hills, this is a popular weekend escape for the city-dwellers from the south. The walk up Highway 1 was a pleasant one I had to admit and this left Amy with a smug self-satisfied smile on her canine face.

Nevertheless, the grass is always greener on the other side of the Bay, so I gave Amy a running commentary of the places we were passing (or we would have been doing if we had been walking up the west side) : shell beach, pebble beach, shallow Beach, and even the delightfully named Hearts Desire. None of these seemed to bother Amy at all, but later I hit the jackpot when I pointed out Duck Beach - only a quarter of a mile swim away.

Half-way up the bay is the small community of Marshall which is a centre for the oyster and clam fishing industry. If you want to sample the local produce call in at the Marshall Store which claims to have "the best oysters on the planet". If you check out the conflicting claims for this title on the web you see it is a dead heat between Marshall and Wellfleet in Massachusetts.

Close by Marshall is the Marconi Conference Center which includes a 28 room hotel. Guglielmo Marconi, the father of wireless radio, built the first trans-Pacific receiving station here in 1913; the 28-room hotel was meant to house workers. RCA took over the site in 1920, followed decades later by the cultish drug-and-alcohol rehabilitation group Synanon (the subject of the Point Reyes Light expose which won it the Pulitzer Prize).

Amy and I ended the week camped on the shore of Tomales Bay. In the next field there were some highland cattle. Just beyond them the lush green hills swept up to meet the sky. We could have been back home in Yorkshire. We felt homesick.

Week 27 Rocky Point To Olema

2007-09-18T00:32:00.000-09:00

We started our week at Rocky Point (as it turns out a very descriptive name) and we made our way via Steep Ravine Canyon (as it turns out an even more descriptive name) to join the Shoreline Highway. The Shoreline Highway is an old friend of ours and has been with us - in one persona or another - since the start of our journey. Sometimes it is State Route 1, sometimes Highway 101. Sometimes it is Pacific Coast Highway, sometimes it is Cabrillo Highway. It changes its name with the frequency of a petty fraudster, but today it is the Shoreline Highway and it is taking us north. One of the first places we came upon was Red Rock Beach which turns out to be the most popular nudest beach north of San Francisco. I tried to hurry Amy on and exchanged witty repartee with her in order to try and avert her attention from the lobster-pink bodies in the near distance. We stopped to read a copy of the Nudist Beach Etiquette Rules and I pointed out to Amy Rule 3 which states "If you're sunbathing nude in a secluded area, leave a bathing suit on a rock to let others know they are approaching an unclothed person. If you're uncomfortable having your suit out of reach, bring a spare". Amy found all this quite bizarre and wanted to know whether she should leave the Bow and Fur Leather Coat she bought at Diggidy Dog in Carmel lying around just in case. I told her not to be so silly and we hurried on.

Very soon we came to Stinson Beach. Here we found over three miles of sandy beach, a 51 acre park, 100s of picnic tables and a snack bar. To our surprise, we also found William Shakespeare. Each year, Stinson Beach gives itself over to the Shakespeare at Stinson Festival and our journey up the beach coincided with a production of the Taming of the Shrew. Amy - who considers herself to be a logical dog - could not understand why, earlier in the day, I had found the sight of a few naked sunbathers uncomfortable whilst, a few miles further north, I could walk passed a group of eccentrics dressed in 16th century costumes and shouting strange insults at one another without batting an eyelid. What she didn't realise was that I was rushing her onwards for, as far as I can remember, there wasn't a part for a dog in the play. One might be tempted to ask why Shakespeare at Stinson Beach? "Why not" those Bard-loving citizens of Northern California would reply.

Towards its norther extremity, Stinson Beach provides a natural bar which stretches out across Bolinas Lagoon. However, it is impossible to walk all the way to the small town of Bolinas without getting your feet very wet. Amy pointed out that in her case it would be her feet, her legs, her tummy and her head, so we turned back and followed the road which runs up the east side of the lagoon. There is some nice little beach houses here and for a few moments Amy and I dreamed. Despite our best efforts we couldn't dream up a way of affording the $4,000 a week rental and therefore we walked on.

Bolinas Lagoon is almost the last point at which you can see the distant towers of San Francisco. We were about to say goodbye to big-city life for the best part of a year. We turned our respective backs on city-scapes and bade a hearty welcome to gulch-country. As you follow Balinas Lagoon to the north there are an awful lot of gulches. Within just a few miles there's Wilkins Gulch, Pike County Gulch, Morses Gulch, McKinnan Gulch, Cronin Gulch, and Copper Mine Gulch to name just a few. Amy asked me what a gulch was, which under the circumstances was quite a reasonable question. I quoted her the standard dictionary definition - "A narrow rocky ravine with a fast-flowing stream running through it" - and she pointed out that none of the so-called gulches had any streams in them. At that very moment we were passing a sign pointing towards "Flying Pig Ranch". Not everything is what it says it is, I replied. She didn't reply. She was too busy looking up into the sky for a passing bacon sandwich.

Leaving Bolinas Lagoon behind, the Shoreline Highway, Amy and I cut up through the hills until we eventually reached the town of Olema. With a population of 55, Olema is now a sizeable town on our route and therefore worthy of full investigation.

The town takes its name from the Miwok Indian word for coyote. The town reached the zenith of its fame and fortune in the mid nineteenth century when it became a popular place for workers in the booming logging industry to relax. There were numerous saloons and establishments of even lesser repute. It would never grow bigger. As the logging industry faded so did the fortunes and notoriety of Olema. Today it is a sleepy little place with a handful of shops and houses. It is also the place where the Shoreline Highway meets up with Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. If Amy was surprised to see this archetypal English name out here in the hills of California she did not give it away. By contrast I was intrigued until I discovered that Drake is supposed to have landed on the beach just down the road with the crew of the Golden Hind during his voyage around the world. "It's a small world", I said to Amy. "Wuff", she replied.

We ended the week at the Olema Inn. Whilst genuinely old, the Inn has none of the dubious attributes of those earlier Olema saloons. In fact it is quite a refined place : "a gateway for simple indulgences and small luxuries where you can dream away your cares and escape your troubles". For her simple indulgence, Amy had a plate of chicken. For my small luxury I had a bottle of the 2002 Beckmen Vinyards Marsanne Santa Ynez Valley : a snip at just $31. Ah the simple pleasures of life.

Week 26 : San Francisco To Rocky Point

2007-09-10T02:28:00.000-09:00

Returning from real travel to virtual travel is a bit of a culture shock. Your frame of reference is different and you move from a passive perspective (experiencing the real sights and sounds that surround you) to an active one (within certain constraints, determining what those sights and sounds will be). I explained all this to Amy, my Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier, as we made our way across Golden Gate Bridge. She dismissed my philosophical musings, pointing out that whilst I might have been cruising up the Atlantic Coast of Europe for the last few weeks, she had been stuck in a kennel. For her, virtual travel meant that she could ride on trains, eat in the best restaurants, sip beer in seaside bars and chase walruses. Compared to a concrete floor and barking neighbours, virtual travel won hands down any day.

And so we entered Marin County ("our mission is excellent service") I reflected that we were now leaving the urban sprawl of Southern California behind and heading towards the near wilderness that is the northern part of the state. California is certainly a state of contrasts but this is not really surprising if one remembers the very scale of the place. As I was walking Amy the other day someone called out "where are you now". When I explained that I had just crossed the Golden Gate Bridge they replied with a note of surprise "still in California?". People shouldn't forget, I mumbled to Amy, that walking the Californian coast is equivalent to walking from London to Barcelona. She ignored me. She usually does.

Once we had left the famous bridge behind we entered the Marin Headlands which forms part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Amy and I soon found ourselves hiking up and down steep hills and finding deserted rocky bays, all within just a few miles of downtown San Francisco. Like the San Francisco Bay itself, the Marin Headlands are noted for their frequent fogs which roll in from the Pacific. But on the days we virtually walked the hills, the fogs stayed away (according to the Fog Forecast carried by the SFGate website) which meant we got a good view of Rodeo Lagoon as we approached from the east. On Google Earth the lagoon looks a poisonous green colour and this has prompted someone to ask whether it is a toxic lake. The answer appears to be, "it depends when you go". The lagoon is separated from the sea by a sand spit which is normally breached by high winter tides. Such breaches refresh the lagoon with fresh, blue, seawater. Between breaches it tends to get brackish and very salty. Amy had a quick taste and then demanded a beer to quench her thirst. Sad to say, we couldn't find a bar.

We were now back on the Pacific coast and we going to follow the coast north for the rest of the week. What roads there are tend to have an off-on affair with the coast, sometimes they will come close, sometimes they shun the sea as and hide in the twisting valleys. We followed paths across the bare hills, keeping close to the coast and knowing that would eventually take us to Muir Beach. Muir Beach is not a big place. With about 150 houses it is tiny compared to the great metropolis's we were passing through as we approached San Francisco. But this was the scale we would now need to get used to, and both Amy and I found the comparative loneliness of these hills and small towns quite refreshing.

And talking of refreshing, the reason we were so keen not to miss Muir Beach was the wonderful Pelican Inn. Our tongues had been hanging out ever since we had sampled the waters of Rodeo Lagoon (OK, since Amy had sampled them and told me about them). And here, in a remote spot in Marin County was an authentic English Inn. They served Yorkshire pudding and had Fuller’s London Pride Ale on draught. At $250 dollars per room per night it might be on the pricey side, but what the hell, this is the virtual world with, I assume, virtual money. The taste of that beer was anything but virtual.

The next day we were due to continue along the coast. Both of us had slept well and were convinced that this place was pretty close to paradise. We realised that we could abandon the great project and spend the rest of our virtual lives as house-guests at the Pelican Inn. There were all sorts of wild critters for Amy to chase and all sorts of beers and whiskeys for me to sample. We thought about it long and hard. While thinking about it Amy polished off a plate of bangers and mash and I flirted with a bottle of Theakston "Old Peculier". It was Amy who eventually got up and pulled me away. If she noticed the tear in my eye as we left the Inn behind us and headed towards Rocky Point, she was kind enough not to mention it.

Summer Break

2007-07-31T06:40:00.000-09:00

Amy and her travelling companion are on holiday. They will return at the beginning of September.

Week 25 : Downtown San Francisco

2007-07-31T06:25:00.000-09:00

The final couple of days of the first stage of our epic journey sees Amy, my Wheaten Terrier, and I slightly foot-sore (pad-sore), slightly home-sick, and slightly overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle which is big-city San Francisco. The deaf sign language symbol for London is, I believe, the hands held up to the ears, signifying a loud and busy city. It may appear strange for deaf people to identify London by something they cannot hear, but I – as a virtual traveller - understand where they are coming from. You don’t have to be there to hear it, you don’t have to hear it to know it. Just take a look at the Google Earth image of downtown San Francisco and you get a headache. There is a lot going on here.

All you can do is to make a drunken bee-line to one or two places you particularly want to see and leave the rest to the next time you virtually pass by. Thus Amy and I called in for a pint of Guinness at Kate O’Briens on Howard and 2nd , bought a hot dog at The Dog Out on Market Street and headed up towards Haight Ashbury. Haight Ashbury, I explained to Amy as I tucked a flower in her fur, is resonant of youth, peace, love and music.

During the 1960s, young people from all over the world flocked to San Francisco – and in particular to the streets around Haight Street and Ashbury Street – to “turn on, tune in, and drop out”. As Amy and I walked the streets, which are now more of a tourist destination than a beacon of the alternative culture, I couldn’t help wondering why they came here. The district is looking a bit tired and shabby. As I caught a reflection of Amy and I in a shop window I decided it was a suitable place for us. We were looking a bit tired and shabby as well.

We cut down through Ashbury Street to Golden Gate Park. At three miles long and one mile wide it is one of the largest urban parks in the world. Within its borders you will find three museums, numerous ornamental gardens, half a dozen lakes, and a herd of buffalo.

The herd of buffalo are to be found in the buffalo paddock which was established at the end of the nineteenth century with the aim of protecting the largest of all the North American land animals which, by then, were on the verge of extinction. The first herd to take up residence all died of TB whilst the second – acquired from the legendary Buffalo Bill – had “temperamental problems” (it took 80 men to recapture one escaped bull). Amy and I gazed over the fence at the huge beasts. I was trying to imagine a time when they roamed the great plains in their hundreds of thousand. Amy was trying to imagine them in bite-size pieces.The trouble with my travelling companion – as I have suggested a number of times over the last six months – is that she has no soul.

After Golden Gate Park, Amy and I threaded our way north until we reached the mighty Presidio. The Presidio was a military encampment from 1776, when it was established by the Spaniard Jose Joaquin, right until 1990. It still dominates the most northerly part of the great promontory that houses San Francisco city. But now the military have been replaced by nature : the guns by rare wild flowers, the tanks by butterflys, and the cannons by slithering lizards.

It was a nice thought to bear in mind as we headed for the east sidewalk of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, where, as well as pedestrians, dogs are allowed to cross over to Marin County. It was such a rare event for dogs to be allowed to do anything within a national park or monument, that Amy and I walked to the middle of the bridge. Then we headed back for the city and the airport. The first stage of our journey was now over. A short holiday had been promised.

Over the last six months we walked some 430 miles. We had seen the Pacific Ocean, crossed mountain ranges and explored forest paths. We had gazed in awe of fine buildings and wonderment at engineering miracles. We had seen whales, zebras, snakes and bison. And, in reality, we had never left the grey and wet streets of West Yorkshire. This virtual travel business was turning out to be fun.

However we had only just scraped the surface. We had covered just one-tenth of the total distance from Los Angeles to New York (via Seattle). We needed to be in this in the long-term.

Therefore, I said to Amy as we looked over the side of the Golden Gate Bridge, a short holiday at home for a few weeks and then back to it. When we return we will need to trek north through the wilderness of North California and Oregon. “Now that will be some challenge”. “Wuff”, she replied.

Week 24 : Lake San Andreas to Mission Bay

2007-07-26T13:36:00.000-09:00

Amy and I start the week walking north along the final few yards of Skyline Boulevard, heading for the city of San Francisco. Skyline Boulevard is quite some road, which cuts through the backcountry of Silicon Valley and runs along the ridgeline of the Santa Cruz Mountains. For a while it is like being back in the country again : to the right are the city streets and houses I have become over-familiar with but to the left a mountainous green wedge digs into the fleshy under-belly of San Francisco. I almost wish I had walked the length of Skyline, creeping into the metropolis by stealth rather than taking the digital route via Silicon Valley. Pointing south, I tell Amy that just a few miles up the road is the famous Alice’s Restaurant. Her tail wags from side to side. She likes restaurants. But we head north. “It’s the streets of San Francisco for you girl”, I say. The phrase rolls easily from my tongue.

But there again it would do. “The Streets of San Francisco” are part of my heritage – I spent hours watching the TV series thirty-odd years ago. And when I wasn’t keeping up to date with the events in the lives of Detectives Stone and Keller on television I was at the cinema feeling slightly travel sick as Steve McQueen (aka Lt. Frank Bullitt) crashed and screeched up and down the same streets. San Francisco, like Los Angeles I suppose, is a “World Heritage Site of the Imagination”. The United Nations hasn’t started designating such places yet, but when they do they could start with San Francisco.

San Francisco is, of course, built on a promontory and as this narrowed, Amy and I were overwhelmed with indecisiveness. Should we turn left and walk up the Pacific coast or turn right and hug the Bay coast? In the end we tacked from side to side like a sailing boat in search of a decent breeze. And as a result we saw neither the sea nor the Bay. We saw a lot of houses, however. We saw big houses and small houses, square houses and oblong houses. And we saw shops. We saw long shops and short shops, fat shops and thin shops. And then we turned a street corner and saw …. a mountain.

San Bruno mountain is a shock. You don’t expect it. Right in the middle of the urban sprawl that is San Francisco there is this dirty, great big mountain. Amy and I were halted in our tracks. We looked at each other but didn’t need to speak. We both knew what we were going to do. We were going to climb it.

San Bruno Mountain is the largest urban open space in the United States – a total of over 3,000 acres of undeveloped open space. Its highest point - Radio Peak – is 1,314 feet above sea level. The mountain provides a habitat for several species of rare and endangered plants and butterflies. If you turn to the San Bruno Mountain Watch website you can find detailed descriptions of the endangered species. You will also find a list of 91 bird species that are regular visitors to the mountain. As we walked up the path that would take us from Hillside on the south of the mountain to the splendidly named Cow Palace on the north, we decided to see how many of the 91 species we could spot.

I managed just one – a starling (although I gave it its official name of Sturnus vulgaris in order to impress Amy) whilst she also claimed a score of one – a chicken. I was tempted to discount her score on the basis that (1) a chicken was not on the list of 91 birds, and (2) it had been fried and battered and left by someone at the side of the path, but I thought that was perhaps uncharitable and therefore I said nothing. Getting bored with that game, we moved onto another : how many regulations of the San Bruno State Park could we break at the same time. We did a lot better on this game. The very fact that Amy was on the mountain was in breach of one regulation. I picked a passing daisy and claimed a point. Amy let loose a large bark and reclaimed the lead. I pulled a small bottle of Lagavoulin Single Malt out of my back-pack and picked up another point. It was only when Amy squatted down amongst the scrub and brush proclaiming “beat that” that I called an end to the game.

When we eventually got down the other side of the mountain I tried to explain to Amy why Cow Palace was not the home of some bovine deity. “It’s a convention and exhibition centre”, I explained. “The home of events such as the Grand National Rodeo, Horse and Stock Show, the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show, circuses and music concerts”. “It’s where the annual Golden Gate Kennel Club Dog Show is held”, I added, hoping this would impress her. She was a bit dismissive, saying something about Size 0 models with fake hairpieces.

We were back in the urban jungle and now we entered San Francisco proper : we crossed the County Line. San Francisco is both a city and a County. As far as I could make out from reading the SFGov website, the City and County government structures are totally integrated : there is one mayor, one set of departments, one Police Department, that kind of thing. As a city it is the fourteenth-most populous in the United States, and the second most densely populated major city in the country. As a County it must be the smallest in California and one of the smallest in the country. It is a new city which hardly existed at all before the 1840s gold rush. More than most cities, its history is dominated by one event : the earthquake and fire of 1906.

If you want to get a good overview of the great earthquake and the subsequent fire you can go to the excellent on-line Exhibition hosted by the Bancroft Library. To get an idea of the scale of the devastation, make sure you have a look at the amazing panoramic view of the City taken from Nob Hill shortly after the fire. The fact that the city has been able to rebuild itself, the fact that it retains its thrusting optimism in the face of the constant threat of renewed destruction : these are all part of the attraction of the city. The City By The Bay is a good place to visit.

Amy and I made our way north through the old docklands area. Candlestick Point, Hunters Point, India Basin and Lash Lighter Basin : we drank in the evocative names. Many of them are old industrial areas which are rapidly being re-invented as the most desirable places to live. “Contemporary living hits a high watermark at Candlestick Point – The Cove”, trills one website, “the latest development that’s fast becoming one of the City’s most desirable addresses”. “This exclusive gated community is located on a secluded cove overlooking San Francisco Bay”. Amy and I pushed our noses through the bars of the gate. Very nice … but not for us.

We finished our week in the Mission Bay area of downtown San Francisco. Again it is an old industrial area which is undergoing rapid regeneration, in this case driven by the new Mission Bay Campus of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). The view looking north from the new Genentech building gives an impression of how close Amy and I were to the end of the first part of our journey. In just a few days time we would reach the Golden Gate Bridge and reward ourselves with a short (non-virtual) holiday.

Week 23 : Belmont To Lake San Andreas

2007-07-18T01:06:00.000-09:00

"Lost in San Francisco", I said to Amy. "What?", I thought she replied, although it might have been "wuff" : there was a lot of noisy traffic trailing along El Camino Real. "It's like we are lost in San Francisco", I repeated, "and before you say anything, I know we have still not officially arrived in San Francisco". Amy, my five-year-old Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier wisely kept her council. We were passing through Belmont, heading for Foster City. If you are not familiar with them, Belmont and Foster City are just two of the cities that make up the gigantic urban sprawl that is San Francisco. To the north is the City of San Francisco proper (where Amy and I were heading). To the south-east Silicon Valley stretches out like a digital banana skin, with its apex at San Jose (where Amy and I have just come from).

Week 23 of our epic virtual journey from Los Angeles to New York had started at Belmont ("a small-town ambiance which sets it apart as a tranquil, safe, and desirable place to live") and we were now heading for the neighbouring Foster City ("a small-but-sophisticated community for big city excitement without big city stresses"). Whilst most of these small, Bay area, commuter cities are almost indistinguishable, Foster City is a bit different : it used to be a salt marsh. Just 50 years ago, what is now a thriving city of 30,000 residents was then a salt marsh called Brewer's Island. It was bought for $200,000 by the retired real-estate developer T. Jack Foster and his business partner Richard Grant. The city they would build - Foster City - would be something new, something different : it would be a planned city. It would have a pre-determined population ceiling, it would have carefully-crafted waterways, it would have tree-lined streets, it would have manicured parks, it would have beautiful houses, it would have lagoons, jogging trails .... and it would have debt. My, my, how it would have debt.

Within a few years of the project starting, it had absorbed nearly $5 million of T Jack Foster's own money. It was then designated a California "municipal improvement district" which as a "public corporation" could raise money by issuing bonds. By the end of the 1960s it had managed to run-up over $80 million in debt and was still little more than a large building site. Just maintaining the debt put enormous pressures on the local budget and new residents quickly found that their ideal planned community came at a price. After years of litigation, the budget situation now seems to have stabilised, and life in Foster City appears pleasant, safe, peaceful, sunny ..... and just a tad boring.

As we walked along the streets and paths of Foster City, Amy remarked on the relatively few dogs she had seen. I had to point out to her that there were strict local ordinances on the maximum number of dogs or cats that could be kept per household. She said something like "fascist state", but it could have been "lick-slurp" : there were a lot of noisy speedboats chugging along the waterways.

Leaving Foster City behind we made our way to Coyote Point which sticks out into San Francisco Bay like a septic pimple. Here we found Coyote Point Museum, a splendid educational facility dedicated to providing "engaging, educational experiences for our diverse, multi-generational Bay Area community through wildlife, gardens, exhibitions, and programs that relate to the global environment". Amy was particularly attracted by the posters encouraging visitors to adopt an animal. She seemed very keen to adopt a domestic rabbit and I became somewhat suspicious of her motives. Eventually, I offered to fund the adoption of a Banana Slug, but she seemed to have lost interest by then.

Like Brewer's Island/Foster City, Coyote Point was originally a salt marsh. In the early 1900s, the land was drained and the Pacific City Amusement Park was built on the site. The main features of the park, which opened in 1922, were a boardwalk, children's playground, and concessions consisting of scenic railway, merry-go-round, Ferris wheel, dancing pavilion and several food concessions. It was reputed to have had one million visitors during the first season. During its second season the amusement park experienced a fire, which destroyed about a quarter of the development. It never opened for another season. The reasons given for its closing were the strong afternoon winds and sewer contamination in the bay. Today, Coyote Point is the site of a park, a golf-course and a marina.

If you sit on the breakwater that forms the northern edge of the marina you get a spectacular view of San Francisco International Airport, the main runway of which is about a couple of miles away. San Francisco International Airport (SFO to its friends and baggage tags) is the major international airport of northern California. It is the fourteenth largest airport in the USA and the twenty-third largest in the world. Until 1927, what is now a major international air terminal was a cow pasture. During the latter half of the twentieth century the airport experienced rapid growth and it is currently attempting to win support for a major runway extension. The problem is, that the only place to extend the runway to is further out into the Bay. One of the most spectacular building is the new International Terminal which was opened in 2000. As I told Amy as we walked by, it is the largest international terminal in North America and the largest building in the world built on base isolators (special thingies used in the construction process to protect against earthquake damage). Amy yawned. We said goodbye to SFO for the time being, but we would be back here again in a couple of weeks on our virtual way home for a short holiday.

Later we passed through the City of Burlingame, which is getting ready to celebrate its centenary. And what a delightful little eccentric city it is. The city website has a section entitled "Extraordinary Burlingamers". These include Steven Backman who recently built a 13 foot replica of the Golden Gate Bridge using nothing other than 30,000 toothpicks. Also included is inventor, Robert Barrows, who recently filed a patent application for “Talking Tombstone,” a hollow headstone that allows the deceased to speak via a recorded message that is seen and heard when a touchscreen is activated. And let us not forget Steve Hurwitz who currently holds the world record for swimming from Alcatraz Island to the mainland (just a few weeks ago he swam back and forth to the island for the 500th time in order to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the infamous last escape from the prison island). As I said to Amy and we walked by the Steelhead Brewing Company, this is the kind of place I feel at home in, the kind of place I could settle down in. Amy was not impressed. She pulled on the lead and we headed out of town.

We finished the week at Lake San Andreas which is a few miles due west of SFO and right in the middle of the peninsular. The lake is not particularly large, nor is it outstandingly beautiful. It was originally a small, natural sag pond which was expanded in the in 1870s with the construction of an earthen dam to form a 550-acre reservoir for the City of San Francisco. Its fame comes from the fact that below its surface runs the geological fault line which has already destroyed the city of San Francisco once and constantly threatens to do the same again. When the fault was first identified in 1895 by Professor Andrew Cowper Lawson, he named it after this small insignificant lake. Eleven years later in 1906, the fault line gave its most famous demonstration of its power. And it has held sway over the hopes and fears of many Californians ever since.

As Amy and I looked along the lake, late one evening, it appeared calm, peaceful, even docile. But beneath those still waters were forces of destruction the power of which we would see soon for ourselves as we headed towards the City of San Francisco.

Week 22 : Palo Alto To Belmont

2007-07-06T08:00:00.000-09:00

I made a mistake the other week when I referred to San Francisco as being the largest city in California. It isn’t (that honour belongs to Los Angeles). It’s just that it feels like it. As you pound the streets of the Bay area, it is impossible to know where one city starts and another ends. During the last week, Amy – my wheaten terrier – and I have walked through the cities of Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Redwood City, San Carlos and Belmont and we have hardly worked up a sweat. In total we have covered less than 12 miles which is the lowest mileage we have clocked up in a week since we started this journey. The problem is – and I am a bit ashamed to admit this – it is all a little bit tedious. It is not easy to convey what it is like to walk along such unchanging streets and highways, where variety is a different façade on a MacDonalds restaurant. Not easy, but it can be done.

Join Amy and I as we walk north-west up El Camino Real courtesy of Google’s Street View. Laugh with us as we pass the hilarious “Ouse of Humor”. Thrill with us as we pass the new Honda dealership. Cry with us as we remember what it was like to feel the grass beneath our feet and hear the Pacific waves beating against the rocky coastline.

We did manage to feel some grass beneath our feet. To assuage the tedium we planned our daily walks so that they would always start and finish in a park. This wasn’t particularly difficult, the urban Bay area is dotted with neighbourhood parks. But with just a few exceptions these are less than inspiring – patches of green where you can throw a football around or jog a few laps of a track. They did little more than provide a series of punctuation marks for our week’s journey : Nealon Park, Holbrook Palmer Park, Fleishman’s Park, Hawes Park, Mezes Park, E R Burton Park, and finally Twin Pines Park. Amy and I discovered that if you repeat all of the names, like a mantra, it sends you to sleep. Just try it. Nealon Park, Fleishman’s Park, Hawes Park ……

We must have been asleep when we walked over the County Line on our first day out of Palo Alto. In blissful sleep we said goodbye to Santa Clara and hello to San Mateo. The County seal features a tree, some flowers, a few mountains, and a bit of sea. There is a bit of space left on the design so you can draw your own burger bar, freeway, and motel on it. If you look carefully you will see that someone has made a start by pencilling-in an aeroplane taking-off from the pine tree at an alarming angle.

Amy and I turned to the San Mateo County website to see what the place had to offer. Turning to the section marked “Living Here” we found a series of pages, each devoted to a specific group of potential residents. You could look up the advantages of living in San Mateo from the perspective of young people, old people, the sick and the disabled. At Amy’s request – she has problems with the touch-pad mouse on the lap-top – I checked out the section marked “Pets and Animals”. All we found were links to Animal Control and Licensing, the Vector Control Program (whatever that might be), information on dealing with animal bites and rabies, and the rodent control site. Amy took a quick look at the picture postcard she has of the dog-friendly city of Carmel-by-the-Sea (she carries it with her everywhere, it is a bit of an embarrassment) and we walked on. That night we pitched our tent in Nealon Park and I found Amy reading the long and detailed rules which govern the use of the Off-Leash Area. No puppies, no dogs on heat (she almost spluttered with indignity at this one), owners (“owners!” she barked) must keep the leash in their hands at all times. She shook her head. San Mateo County was no place for a dog.

At some point during the week we passed through Redwood City. The only thing I can recall is a large sign which proclaims the name of the city and the its’ slogan : “Climate Best by Government Test”. Intrigued, I checked out the scientific basis of this claim. It would appear that in the early years of the twentieth century, a joint survey was undertaken by the American and German governments to identify the place with the best climate in the world. Why they should want to do this is anyone’s guess – perhaps they were working out where to invade next – but, it appears that Redwood City, California shared joint first place along with the Canary Islands and North Africa! As a USP (unique selling point) the claim seems somewhat tenuous and Amy intimated as much. “What else is there to say about the place?”, I replied.

The following day, either the Canary Islands or Tangiers must have pulled ahead in the tie-breaker for it started to rain. For the first time since the start of our trans-continental trek I was seriously tempted to catch a bus. It was Amy who pointed out the logical flaw in this illogical plan : neither of us had seen a bus for the last five or six weeks. And so we pressed on.

By the end of the week we had reached the City of Belmont. If you Google-search for an interesting photograph of Belmont, you find a series of photographs of painted fire hydrants. At first you might think that the great Google has made a mistake. And then you realise that, no, this is an interesting photograph of Belmont. Perhaps it is the most interesting photograph of the city there is. Perhaps I am getting cynical. Perhaps I need a holiday. Perhaps, once we have reached San Francisco and its Golden Gate Bridge, Amy and I will take a couple of weeks off and go on holiday. Perhaps we will go to the Canary Islands. It will be a bit of a change.

Week 21 : Santa Clara to Palo Alto

2007-06-28T13:37:00.000-09:00

Amy and I have got used to life in the city. Our zig-zag progress along Silicon Valley is as much a response to our search for urban parks as it is to the need to clamber under concrete expressways. We have also got rather blasé about the grand buildings we pass on the way. Airports, smart hotels, massive corporate headquarters drift by and we scarcely give them a second look. “That’s one of the largest unsupported structures in the western world”, I remarked to Amy at one point this week. She didn’t even bother to reply.

We started the week by heading north, drawn not by the smell of the sea, but by the unmistakable odour of salt. If you take a look at any aerial map of the south San Francisco Bay area you will find evidence of what appears to be the kind of bold colouring you would expect to see in a child’s colouring book. Vivid greens, bright yellows, mordant whites and even some quite frightening pinks sit side-by-side. These are – or in some cases were – the salt evaporation ponds of the San Francisco Bay. We were keen to see something of them as they are in the process of being returned to their natural wetland state as part of the ambitious South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project.

An estimated 85 to 90% of the historic tidal marshes in the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary have been filled or significantly altered over the past two centuries, for urban development, agriculture, and salt production. Commercial salt production in the San Francisco Bay began in 1854. The entire South Bay salt pond complex is spread over an area of approximately 26,000 acres. These salt ponds produce salt for a variety of industrial purposes, including chlorine bleach and plastics manufacture. In 2003, the state and federal government entered one of the largest private land purchases in American history, paying about $200 million for 16,000 acres of salt ponds in the south bay. This land is now being returned to its natural wetland state, in order to provide better flood management and enhanced habitats for a variety of wetland species.

All the talk about salt ponds gave both Amy and I a hunger and a thirst of serious proportions, so we called in at Birks Restaurant which has, according to its website, “been quenching the appetites of the South Bay's movers and shakers since 1989”. I suspect that Amy wasn’t quite sure what a “mover and shaker” was, because she appeared to think it was necessary to fidget more than normal and scratch her ear with her back paw more than is fitting in polite company. This was a particular problem because, as far as I could see, dogs weren’t welcome in the restaurant and I was trying to keep her hidden under the table. Her twitching and squirming was so bad that I had to abandon plans to relax, after the meal, with a glass of Lagavoulin and a decent cigar, but as this saved me the best part of $30 I couldn’t complain.

Just across the road from the restaurant is the “Great America Amusement Park” and Amy and I decided to call in and see what it had to offer. What it had to offer included the Demon (a classic roller coaster), Top Gun (Northern California’s longest inverted roller coaster), Invertigo (North America’s first inverted face-to-face roller coaster); and the Vortex (Northern California’s first stand-up roller coaster. Even the names of these put the fear of God into me so I suggested to Amy that we should just sit back and watch everyone else enjoy themselves. She quite fancied the Psycho Mouse ride, but once I had explained that there wasn’t a real mouse to catch, she settled down on a park bench with me.

After leaving the park we continued our walk along silicon valley. The adopted name of the region has become such a fixture that it is easy to forget that you are walking through a series of cities, all of which merge together to form the conglomerate that is silicon valley. So far we had passed through San Jose and Santa Clara and we were currently in Sunnyvale. Ahead was Mountain View, Palo Alto and Stanford. That is six cities in a little over a week.

As you walk along these streets, even the casual observer quickly learns how the local people make a dollar or two. During the course of just a few days we walked past the headquarters of the Nvidia Corp (graphic cards); Foundary Networks (web traffic management), 3Com (network infrastructures), Yahoo, Google and the Silicon Graphics Corps.

But it was an earlier wave of technology which kept us enthralled as we visited the museum of the Moffett Field Historical Society, a few miles further up the valley. The museum is located in what used to be the Moffett Field Naval Air Station and is now Moffett Federal Airfield. In the 1930s the Air Station became the home of the US Navy’s massive helium-filled airship, the Macon. At 785 feet long, the Macon was approximately ten feet longer than the Graf Zeppelin and it contained accommodations for 100 officers and men, including sleeping berths, a large mess room, a galley, and observation platforms at the nose and tail.

To house the airship, a massive hanger was constructed at the Airfield, Hanger One, and, unlike the airship, Hanger One still survives in all its glory today. The hangar is constructed on a network of steel girders sheathed with galvanized steel. It rests upon a reinforced pad anchored to concrete pilings. The floor covers eight acres and can accommodate 10 football fields. The clam-shell doors were designed to reduce turbulence when the Macon moved in and out on windy days. Such a fine home was something of a waste. The Macon sunk off the Californian Big Sur coast in 1935 after completing just 50 flights.

The contrasts – and similarities - between technological generations is well illustrated in this part of Silicon Valley. Seventy years ago America was spending a fortune on projects such as the Macon and its hanger. The main purpose of the airship was not dropping flour bombs or shooting-up ground forces, but observation: finding out what was happening at ground level. The idea of having a big observation platform high in the sky was an attractive one : one worth a substantial amount of investment. Walk a few miles further along the valley and you get to the headquarters of one of the most innovative high-tech corporations in the world : Google. Other than their eponymous search engine, the company is perhaps best known for Google Earth. And what does Google Earth do? It allows you to see what is happening at ground level. It provides a big observation platform high in the sky. It needs neither tons of helium nor a cathedral-size hanger. It can be safely stored inside a tiny microchip.

Amy and I had e-mailed Google a few weeks before we were due to walk passed their Google Campus Headquarters. It seemed the polite thing to do. Here we were, undertaking the most ambitious virtual walk by a man and a dog in recorded history. We were using Google Earth to plan our daily expeditions. We were using the Google Search Engine to check up on all the sites and sounds that we virtually saw and heard. We had navigated a careful path to ensure that we would pass Google Campus : the least you might expect is that they would invite us in for a cup of tea and a dish of water. But we never got a reply to our e-mail – perhaps they were too busy dropping flour bombs on the Yahoo headquarters from their virtual dirigibles.

Amy and I continued west up the valley, fighting back a tear. Amy was keen to reach the city of Palo Alto before the end of the week. When I questioned her on the reason for such enthusiasm, she was unusually coy. Later I discovered her staring at a notice which proclaimed “Palo Alto – Tree City USA” and panting excitedly. I had to explain to her that, unlike Castroville and its intimate relationship with artichokes, Tree City was a general designation for local communities which had a tree or two along the main street.

However, we did manage to end the week in sight of a fair number of trees. We pitched our tent in the picturesque grounds of Stanford University. No doubt camping is forbidden on the plush lawns of the Stanford Oval. But in a virtual world you can get away with almost anything.

Week 20 : Los Gatos To Santa Clara

2007-06-21T11:56:00.000-09:00

“So this is Silicon Valley”, I said to Amy, my soft-coated wheaten terrier, as we left Los Gatos on our way north to San Jose at the start of week twenty of our epic journey. “Why” said Amy. “Why, oh I see what you mean, why Silicon Valley?”, I replied in my best instructional voice. “Well”, I continued, “it was first given that name in the early 1970s when a number of the early computer firms moved to the area, and since then it has become a world centre for microprocessor-related industries”. “Why” said Amy. “Why Silicon?”, I ventured. “Because silicon is the principal component of most semiconductor devices, such as integrated circuits or microchips, and these are central to the working of any computer”. “Why”, Amy persisted. “Because silicon is a tetravalent metalloid which is less reactive than carbon and its native oxide is easily grown in a furnace and forms a better semiconductor/dielectric interface than almost all other material combinations”, I snapped back. I was getting a little cross by now, Amy was behaving like one of those annoying infants who ask “why” in response to everything you say to them. When she again asked why, I turned to her and gave her one of my famous looks. Then I realised that she hadn’t been asking why but whining as her lead had got itself wrapped around her back paw. Such are the perils of trying to hold a conversation with a dog.

Amy soon cheered up and we followed the Los Gatos Creek Trail for a while. This nine mile path provides “a riparian corridor for plants and wildlife” according to the Santa Clara County Parks website. For a time it protected us from the challenges of life in an intense urban setting, but after a mile or two we had to take our lives in our hands and paws and try to cross over a road. If you think that sounds easy I challenge you to give it a try.

When I first had the idea for this silly challenge, I always envisaged that the rural areas would present the greatest challenges. “A paucity of on-line resources”, I would say to Amy as we sat in my room looking at the maps of the Rockies, Oregon or Minnesota. Amy, who always liked to join in such discussions, would stare at her paws knowingly. But one of the biggest surprises is that the greatest challenge facing the virtual traveller is the cities and the urban sprawl. In walking the twenty-odd miles from Reedsport to Florence in Oregon there is only one road you can take and there is a limited number of things to comment on. Life for the dog-walker is sedate and quite relaxing. Here, in the middle of Silicon Valley, approaching the largest city in California (San Francisco) via the third largest (San Jose), the life of the virtual dog-walker is frenetic, often frantic, and usually frenzied. Take, for example, the problem of crossing the road.

Take the intersection of Highways 87 and 280 just outside the centre of San Jose. How, on earth, is a solitary man and his faithful dog supposed to traverse such a man-made barrier. The answer is by meticulous planning. Each night we would pore over street maps trying to work out the safest routes. That is why our route this week looks as though it has been drawn by a demented chimp. Whilst the shortest route between two given points is a straight line, in urban California such a route it is not usually the safest option.

Given all this coming and going, it took us three days to reach down-town San Jose. But when we finally got there on Saturday evening Amy had a treat in store for me. The following day was my birthday and she had managed to book us into the San Jose Hilton Towers Hotel for a couple of nights. The next day there would be no walking (well limited “comfort-walking” only) and the promise of “The Hilton Serenity Bed & Amenity Collection, high-speed internet access, oversized comfortable chair, refrigerator, coffee maker including hot chocolate and assorted teas, voice mail, 2-line speakerphones with data port, smart desk, auto wake-up call service, error-free alarm clocks with AM/FM and MP3 capability, mirrored closet doors and large bathrooms and complimentary CNN, HBO and ESPN as well as on demand movies”. We just had the standard room, but that was the standard room.

On Sunday, my birthday, we walked in Quadalupe Park and, because it was my birthday, avoided visiting the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose, the largest outdoor Monopoly board in the world, or the San Jose Centre for Performing Arts. Instead we went back to our hotel room, ate potato chips and watched re-runs of Frasier. As the header on the sanjose.org site declares : San Jose : Where The Fun Never Stops.

The following day we started our walking again, still following a twisting, highway-avoiding route, but generally heading in the direction of Santa Clara. From there I intended to make my way down (or was it up) Silicon Valley towards San Francisco.

San Jose is a big city. With a population of about 900,000 people it is the third largest city in California and the tenth largest in the USA. It is modern, affluent and … well it’s full of buildings. There are an awful lot of them. Street after street of them. As Amy and I walked down the streets we looked at them. They looked as though they were full of people doing very important and very technologically advanced jobs. It was very impressive. And yes, if the truth is told, just a little boring. We walked up North 1st Street, down West Hedding Street, up Chapman Street, and on Market Street and … well we yawned. And we half closed our eyes. And we imagined ourselves back walking the Big Sur coast.

Towards the end of the week our walk took us past the Monastery of the Carmelite Nuns of Santa Clara. Our interest was not a religious one however. Before it became a monastery, it was a ranch owned by Judge Marshall Bond who was a friend of the writer Jack London. The writer was a frequent visitor to the ranch and used it as the scene for the start of his book “The Call of the Wild” This was the home of Buck, the doggy hero of the tale. It was from here that he was stolen and sold into a life of slavery in the Yukon. The story seems to be a great favourite of Amy’s and she was very impressed that we had visited its’ starting point. She sniffed a lot as dogs tend to do. Whether she was sniffing out the scent of Buck or the scent of the nuns we will never know.

Next door to the monastery was an equally unexpected find – the ground of the Santa Clara Cricket Club. The Club sports five teams and, according to its website, an equally active social programme. The last thing I expected to hear in Silicon Valley was the resonant sound of leather on willow. I stopped to watch what looked like a practice game and thought about home. Amy stopped to sniff and thought about the sad story of Buck. We walked north up Pierce Street until we found a McDonalds where we stopped thinking and started eating.

Week 19 : Glenwood Basin To Los Gatos

2007-06-15T05:57:00.000-09:00

19 weeks out of Los Angeles and Amy, my wheaten terrier, and I got to hike over the Santa Cruz mountains on our journey north out of Santa Cruz itself towards San Jose. If this sounds manly (perhaps that should be dogly) and adventurous, it was not. For most of the route we walked alongside Highway 17, a concrete expressway which cuts through the redwood forests like a knife through beef dripping. I dare say that, had we wanted to, we could have found a more attractive passage, one which would have exposed us to chipmunks, raccoons, foxes, and bobcats instead of exhaust fumes. But as I told my travelling companion, there would be plenty of opportunity for raw nature at a later stage of our journey. Right now, Silicon Valley and San Francisco were calling me. Amy suggested that the rich and potent smell of foxes and chipmunks were calling her. However, I could pull on the lead slightly harder than she could, and so we stuck to the direct route.

On the second day out we crossed the County Line, leaving Santa Cruz County behind and entering Santa Clara County. Amy and I performed our now familiar ritual and re-tuned our radio to KSCU, the radio station operated by Santa Clara University and put in a subscription to the San Jose Mercury News. Despite the excitement of a new County – well, I thought it was exciting – Amy was getting pretty fed up with the diet of concrete freeways, exhaust fumes and redwood trees. I consulted the map and told her that there was a city close by and we could visit it without too much of a diversion. “Yes, Holy City looks a pretty neat place”, I said to her with what I thought might be a beatific smile on my face.

When at last we arrived at Holy City we found but two buildings remaining. On a good day there might have been two city residents and Amy claimed she could detect a couple of dogs, but that was it. Once we had pitched our tent in the meadow behind the Art Glass shop (the one functioning building left in the city) we caught up with the extraordinary history of the place. Holy City is just as much archetypal California as the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hollywood sign.

The story starts at the end of the nineteenth century with an itinerant Californian snake-oil salesman and palm-reader called William E. Riker. Riker was a great believer in matrimony, to such an extent that he married two women at the same time. To escape bigamy charges he fled to Canada where he started his own religious cult, known as “The Perfect Christian Divine Way”. If you take a close look at the doctrine he preached, it was neither perfect, Christian or in any way divine and had a chilling streak of white supremacy running through it. Riker moved back to California, bought a parcel of land just off the old Santa Cruz Highway, and established Holy City. Proving once again that there is no shortage of gullible fools in the world, Riker soon gathered around him hundreds of devotees anxious to give their leader their money, their labour and – in some cases – their wives. During the 1930s, Holy City had more than 300 citizens, a weekly newspaper and its own radio station (which featured a popular half-hour show with a Swiss yodeller). Large signs on the old highway would advertise Riker as “the only man who could save California from going plum to hell”. Passers-by could pay their respects to the great spiritual leader by buying petrol from his service station, snacks from his restaurant or looking at the moon through his telescope (“just 10c a look”). Riker made several attempts to become governor of California – an office which has consistently attracted men of a somewhat bizarre nature – and was eventually arrested in 1943 for his open support for Adolph Hitler. At his trial, his lawyer argued that he was nothing more than a harmless crackpot and got him off the charges. Riker was so annoyed that he tried to sue his lawyer for defamation. Riker continued to live in the now deserted Holy City until the 1960s and towards the end of his life he converted to Catholicism. Somehow, the story says a lot about old California and it is worth reading the full story of William Riker and Holy City which can be found in an article by Andrea Perkins which is available on the CoastNews website.

If Riker and Holy City are old California, what is happening just a few miles down the road towards Los Gatos is new California. The normally peaceful forests that surround the impressive Lexington Reservoir are seething with discontent.

The problem is a plan which has been put forward by the San Jose Water Company to cut down the redwood and Douglas Fir trees on some 1,000 acres of land it owns around Lexington Reservoir. The company claims that the logging will help prevent forest fires. This is a claim which is denied by the local action group “Neighbours Against Irresponsible Logging” (NAIL). The group also contend that the plans will spoil water quality, compromise local wildlife and even further tip the balance of climate change. NAIL seems to be the kind of well organised, twenty-first century local action group one would expect of an area which forms the dormitory for Silicon Valley. They have managed to get the support of former Vice-President and campaigner against climate change, Al Gore. They have also made full use of the weapons of the modern era : visit their website and you can take a virtual Google Earth fly-over of the area under threat. This is a very impressive piece of campaigning and you can almost feel the temptation to go out and pick up a banner as you watch the red areas which identify the logging site fly by. It also shows how useful it is to have a Google Earth developer as part of your protest group. As we left the reservoir behind and headed into Los Gatos, Amy and I gave the protest group our full virtual support.

Los Gatos is like so many towns the world over that live in close proximity to large cities (in the case of Los Gatos the large city is San Jose) When no ribbon of wilderness divides such towns from their more populous neighbours, a kind of geographical osmosis drains them of part of their individuality, part of their soul. Even if you just visit the websites of the Town Council or the Chamber of Commerce, you get the impression that you pass through Los Gatos on the way somewhere else. There is nothing wrong with the place, it is a perfectly splendid little community – or it would be if it was set amongst the hills somewhere else.

With such feelings in our minds, Amy and I found it difficult to work up too much enthusiasm. There were restaurants. But there would be bigger and better restaurants to come. There were shops, but nothing like the shops that awaited us around the next corner. However, there was a park and in the park there was a railway.

The Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad which runs through Oak Meadow and Vasona parks has been in operation on this site for over thirty-five years. Before that it was set-up on the Los Gatos ranch of the said Billy Jones, a lifelong railway engineer and enthusiast. On his death the narrow-gauge railway was bought by non-profit corporation funded by local businessmen and moved to the parks. I could find no prohibition of dogs riding on the train, but to be on the safe side, Amy once more took refuge inside one of my bulky pullovers.

Thus, as week 19 of our journey came to an end, we made use of public transport for the first time. The ride is less than a mile long, but was fun. But as Amy remarked, there is probably a bigger train around the next corner.

Week 18 : Rio Del Mar To Glenwood Basin

2007-06-08T02:01:00.000-09:00

Amy and I left the concrete ship of Rio Del Mar behind and headed west, hugging the coast and savouring the exotic names of the bays and beaches. Luckily, the Director of the Capitola Historical Museum, Carolyn Swift, has written a very useful article which examines the origin of these names. New Brighton Beach takes its name from the now demolished New Brighton Hotel which once stood on the spot where the State Beach is now located. Thomas Fallon built the hotel and named it after the famous British resort in the hope that it would attract a better class of customer. It didn’t, in fact it didn’t attract many customers at all and after a few years it closed down. Some years later, John Sinclair – a relative of Fallon’s – built some cabins on the beach near by. Each of the cabins was fitted with a potbelly stove and the beach became known as Pot Belly Beach. “Isn’t this fascinating”, I said to Amy as we walked along. She didn’t even grace me with a reply, merely pulled on her lead with more force than usual and returned to sniffing out the next hamburger joint.

A little further along we passed what remains of the El Salto resort which, during the 1920s was a Mecca for the California rich and famous. “The film star Mary Pickford used to holiday here”, I told Amy. Again she ignored me and pulled me ever-westwards. Some gulls were flying overhead and making a terrible racket. I tried once again to engage my travelling companion in conversation. “Did you know, that in August 1961, thousands of birds invaded the coast here at Capitola? Fresh from a feast of anchovies, the crazed birds crashed into the walls of peoples’ houses, into street signs and into trees, falling to the ground dead or dazed” Amy continued to act like she was dumb. “Alfred Hitchcock read an article about it in the local paper, and decided to use it as material for his new thriller. His classic film “The Birds” was released two years later”. Amy indicated that the only bird she was interested in would be char-grilled, and finger-licking good.

A little later we arrived in Capitola and her spirits seemed to improve. We ate at the Bluewater Steakhouse (“where San Francisco upscale meets Capitola-by-the-Sea local style”) and afterwards walked on the nearby beach. Capitola Beach is another area which proudly proclaims its dog-friendliness. A wonderful organisation called C-Dog (it used to be Capitola Dog Owners Group and now it is the Coastal Dog Owner Group) is dedicated to keeping this bit of the coastline dog-friendly. They have an excellent website which contains loads of very interesting information. “Did you know”, I said to Amy as we watched the sun set over Monterey Bay, “the average American dog-owner spends $203 per year feeding their dog?” Amy just gave me one of her superior smiles. Thinking of the bill I had just paid for our dinner in the Steakhouse, I understood why. We had single-handedly just pushed that average up significantly.

For the next couple of days we headed through the outer suburbs of Santa Cruz, passing the surfing beaches and neighbourhood parks. You can get an impression of what things are like by taking a look at the live Surf Cam which is operated by the Pleasure Point Inn. But there are only a limited number of sub-drenched beaches and sun-bronzed bodies you can stare at before you begin to crave a little cultural relief, and therefore Amy and I made a short detour to call in at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History, a splendid little museum which has a style far in advance of its size. Currently they have an exhibition – “Illustrating Nature” - of student works from the Science Illustration Program of the University of California Extension which is well worth seeing. Even Amy enjoyed it and offered her services as a model.

When we reached the point where the San Lorenzo river spills out into the Bay we had a decision to make : to continue to follow the coast up to San Francisco or to cut inland, over the mountains, to San Jose and then to San Francisco via Silicon Valley. As someone who has had a powerful love affair with computers all my life, the choice was not a difficult one. Whistling “Do You Know The Way To San Jose”, we headed north up Buena Vista Avenue in the general direction of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Leaving the city behind us we wound our way up tree-covered roads which twisted and turned up through the foothills. When Amy enquired where exactly were we heading for, I replied – rather enigmatically I thought, “it’s a mystery”. I could tell that Amy was beginning to fear I might be suffering from altitude sickness, but still I persisted. After carefully consulting the map I took a fork to the left, leaving the minor road behind and heading up and even more minor road. “Where the hell are we going?”. Amy was getting cross now. After a few more hundred yards she put her foot down. In fact she put all four feet down and dug them into the dirt track we were following. She refused to take another step. So picking her up – no mean feat – I carried her to the next corner and there in front of us was the sign for the Mystery Spot.

According to their website, “The Mystery Spot is a gravitational anomaly … It is a circular area of effect around 150 feet or 46 meters in diameter. Within the Mystery Spot you will be stunned as your perceptions of the laws of physics and gravity are questioned”. As you progress through the attraction all sorts of strange things seems to be happening. When you think you are standing straight up, you appear to be leaning at an angle. Smaller things suddenly appear larger and larger things appear smaller. Poor Amy was totally freaked out by the whole experience, claiming that it reminded her of the day she managed to get her paws on an old bottle which still contained some of my prized single malt whisky.

The Mystery Spot website puts forward several explanations of the phenomenon. Perhaps it was that cones of metal were secretly brought here and buried by visitors from outer space as guidance systems for their spacecraft. Some think that it is in fact the spacecraft itself buried deep within the ground. Or maybe it is carbon dioxide permeating from the earth, a hole in the ozone layer, a magma vortex, the highest dielectric biocosmic radiation known anywhere in the world, or radiesthesia (whatever that might be). “Or maybe its because they have erected all the buildings at a funny angle so as to earn a dollar or two from passing idiots with more money than common sense”, sniffed Amy as we left the spot behind and headed north. “Cynic”, I shot back. “Fool”, she retorted.

We kept on like this as we scrambled through some thick brush, taking an unofficial shortcut back to the main highway. We didn’t make friends until we got to Scotts Valley where I bought Amy a double helping of chicken nuggets from the McDonalds there. I also stocked up at the shop and made sure we had enough food and drink for a few days. We were about to leave civilisation behind and head into the mountains. Taking a last look back at Monterey Bay, we headed north. Once again I bravely whistled “Do You Know The Way To San Jose”. Amy barked at the appropriate point.

Weel 17 : Moss Landing To Rio Del Mar

2007-06-01T06:49:00.000-09:00

Amy and I left Moss Landing and headed north, soon crossing over a river which – as far as we could work out – must be the Pajaro. In an effort to be more precise we turned to the website of the Moss Landing Harbor District (“our mission is to provide a functional, visitor-friendly harbour for commercial and recreational use"). Unfortunately, their mission didn’t extend as far as telling me which river flowed through their wharfs, but before I could lodge a complaint I noticed that I should have had a $5 dog permit to walk Amy anywhere near the harbour. As Amy pointed out, you can buy a lot of chicken for $5, so we decided to leave town quick and head for the County Line.

County lines are one of my great discoveries of this walk. If you fly, county lines are meaningless, if you travel by train they are trivial. If your chosen method of transport is a fast car they fly by without troubling either the conscious or the subconscious. But if you walk, they take on a real significance. You look forward to new counties with a pleasing anticipation, you think back on old counties with satisfied nostalgia. And so – halfway between Moss Landing and Watsonville – it was goodbye to Monterey and hello to Santa Cruz (“our beaches are just the beginning…”), the second-smallest County in California. By a tradition which stretches back to the beginning of February 2007, the crossing of a County Line means that Amy and I change our virtual environment. So for the next week or so we will be reading the Santa Cruz Sentinel and listening to the quite wonderful Free Radio Santa Cruz.

Our first chance to see what Santa Cruz County was really like was when we arrived at the City of Watsonville. “Watsonville is the strawberry capital of the world”, I explained to Amy as we walked towards the city-centre. “Each year they hold a famous Strawberry Festival”, I continued with a creeping feeling of déjà vu, for didn’t we have the same conversation about Castroville and artichokes just last week. “And did you know”, I continued like someone in need of a life, “that just down the road is Salinas which is the lettuce capital of the world, whereas just over there is Gilroy which is the garlic capital of the world”. Amy feigned indifference, but I knew that she was mentally plotting a route to Gainesville, Georgia (before you dash off to look it up, it’s the chicken capital of the world).

Watsonville looks like a pretty cool place. It has a speedway track, a famous high school soccer team, and …. and it’s for sale for just $4,000. Well, Watsonville.com is for sale, and when you live in a virtual world it’s the same thing.

The walk from Watsonville to the coast at La Selva Beach takes you past field after field of strawberries. Every so often Amy and I would stop to sample the fare, thanking the powers that be that we were in Watsonville and not Castroville (the thought of chewing on a raw artichoke was too much for either of us). La Selva Beach is a sleepy little place. “What fun things are there to do here”, I asked myself. Then I checked the on-line La Selva Beach Forum and discovered that someone else had posed the same question almost two years ago. They are still awaiting a reply. Not having that kind of time to spare, Amy and I headed north to Rob Roy Junction.

Now there’s a name to conjure with”, I said to Amy as we walked up San Andreas Road (which we later learnt was named after the fault which ran underneath it). Men in tartan kilts sweeping down from mist covered moors to the sound of bagpipes. When we eventually got there we were disappointed. The emphasis was very much on the “Junction” rather than the “Rob Roy”. Amy muttered something about the Trades Description Act as we climbed the concrete ramparts that kept the multiple lanes of traffic apart, but I reminded her that the same criticism was made of Sir Walter Scott’s book – in which the celebrated Rob Roy is only a minor character - some 190 years ago.

We walked the concrete highway to Aptos which, in native American, means “where the waters meet”. Amy stopped next to a fire hydrant to celebrate the fact. Not wanting to be left out of the litany of world famous Californian cities and not growing very many pomegranates or loganberries, Aptos styles itself as “the home of the World’s Shortest 4th July Parade”. It appears that the Aptos parade is just under half a mile long, which – I am reliably informed - is on the short side for such affairs. Nevertheless, half a mile is still quite a long way and therefore, the way is open for any other municipality to steal Aptos’ crown. Aptos is also famous for its French restaurant – the Café Sparrow. As soon as I mentioned this to Amy she got quite excited and demanded that we stop there for lunch. She thoroughly enjoyed her sparrow burger and ate most of mine as well. Despite being assured that the sparrow in the burger was in fact a chicken, I couldn’t get the thought of a little hopping bird out of my mind.

Our week came to an end just down the road from Aptos at the seaside community of Rio Del Mar. Like many other American CDP’s (census designated places), there is a mass of statistical information about Rio Del Mar (median age - 44, median income - $87,000, median race – nine-tenths white with a dash of black, native American, Chinese, and what-have-you) but very little insight into its soul. We wandered through the streets in search the essence of the place, its defining characteristics, or – as those business types would say – its USP (Unique Selling Point). It wasn’t until we came to rest at Seacliff State Beach that we discovered it. It has a concrete ship!

The S.S Palo Alto was an oil tanker built during the First World War. Steel was expensive and someone had the bright idea that building a ship out of cement might give it better protection against German submarines. But the War came to an end, before the construction of the ship did, and by the early 1920 its owners discovered that they had got themselves a classic white elephant. In 1921 it made its first and only journey from Alameda, where it was built, across the San Francisco Bay. For a time it served as a static oil storage tanker and then, in 1930, it was bought by the Seacliff Amusement Corporation. They built a wooden pier to connect the ship to the beach and had great plans for converting it into a luxury Oceanside amusement centre. But then along came the depression and the great concrete ship slowly decayed and died. Strangely enough, the S.S. Palo Alto has now become a tourist attraction in its own right. You can walk the beach and gaze at the sunken concrete hulk. It’s not what the Seacliff Amusement Corporation had in mind, but it got there in the end.

Week 16 : Monterey To Moss Landing

2007-05-27T02:38:00.000-09:00

As Amy and I walked down from the Presido of Monterey to Fisherman’s Wharf after spending a somewhat uncomfortable night on a park bench I whistled “It Happened In Monterey” to keep her spirits up. Stopping to check the lyrics and noticing the line “I met her in Monterey, in old Mexico” I realised I had made a mistake. That was another Monterey, that was another country. It’s a bit like that Monterey – Monterey, California that is – it’s a surprising place and even a bit of a confusing place at times.

For example, as we were taking a shortcut from Arbrego Street to Pacific Street we passed “Stevenson House – the Home of Robert Louis Stevenson”. Could this be the same Stevenson, the archetypal Scotsman, the creator or Treasure Island and Kidnapped? Could this be the sickly son of the famous Stevenson family of lighthouse builders? The answer is, of course, yes. Stevenson stayed here in 1879 (just for a few months be never let it be said that Americans don’t know how to make the most of the history they have) to be near the love of his life and his future wife, Fanny Vandergrift Osbourne.

The literary surprises continued as we hit the seafront just north of Fisherman’s Wharf and discovered a flashy collection of shops, bars and restaurants that is the 21st century Cannery Row. The old fish canning plants that formed the heart of the area that Steinbeck wrote about so memorably are long gone, replaced by designer outlets and theme bars. As Amy remarked, “that’s progress”.

Progress is less noticeable amongst the picturesque chaos that is Fisherman’s Wharf. Here you will find a hotchpotch of shops and restaurants strung out along the wooden piers. During the height of its commercial power, Monterey was one of the most important fishing ports in California and the centre of the sardine industry (it was sardines which were packed by the Cannary Row plants). Originally built in 1870, part of the main pier collapsed in 1923 under the weight of 20,000 cases of sardines which were waiting to be shipped out. To get a flavour of the wharf today, have a look at one of the holiday videos available on YouTube. Although the sardine industry came to a fairly sudden end in the late 1940s when the shoals of sardines fell victim to over-fishing, you can still catch the tang of fish-scales in the air. All that fish can be a bit overpowering, so Amy and I bought a couple of burgers to eat as we made our way around Monterey Bay.

Main course over with, we began to think about something to round our dinner off. Amy quite fancied donuts but I reminded her of the whole purpose of our coast-to-coast walk and suggested something healthy like fruit instead. At which point we serendipitously arrived in the Monterey suburb of Del Monte. So what were the links between this sleepy suburb and the world-famous food company? Were we in for another Monterey surprise? There were clearly no vast canning warehouses here, nor any food processing plants. A visit to the Del Monte company website told us that the headquarters of the company were situated to the north in San Francisco. But the history pages on the website gave us the origin of the Del Monte brand name. It was first used in 1886 for a premium brand of coffee which was supplied to the fashionable Del Monte Hotel in Monterey. The hotel is long-gone – repeatedly attacked by earthquake and fire - and on the site today is the Club Del Monte which styles itself as “the Queen of American Watering Places”. It is now operated by the Navy’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation Department. From their website, it was unclear whether they still served Del Monte tinned fruit, so we gave it a miss and continued up the Bay.

The military theme continued as we made our way north. This is what used to be Fort Ord, one of America’s biggest military bases. It was from here that thousands of troops were shipped off to Korea and Vietnam. As long as you weren’t en-route for combat, Fort Ord was seen as a good posting with its close proximity to the Californian beaches. The site of the military base was taken over by California State University, Monterey Bay in 1994 when Fort Ord closed down. And now the young people who graduate from this sun-kissed corner of California go on to more peaceful destinations.

Monterey had one last surprise for us. We spotted a poster for the 50th Monterey Jazz Festival which will take place in September 2007. The poster was headed MJF and was clearly for a jazz festival. Back home in West Yorkshire, when I am not walking Amy around the rainy streets, I help with the organisation of the Annual Marsden Jazz Festival (MJF) which takes place in a village on the edge of the moors. Could our fame have spread this far? But as I read the list or artists appearing at the American version of MJF - Diana Krall, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Dave Brubeck – I knew I was either day-dreaming again or dealing with a very different festival. I comforted myself with listening to Diana Krall’s latest CD on my MP3 player. After all, recorded music must have been the first example of virtual reality. If Edison had not opened the door to the virtual concert, and pushed the boundaries of technology backwards, perhaps Amy and I would not have been virtually walking the streets of Monterey 130 years later.

When we had been planning our week’s walk a few days earlier, I had drawn Amy’s attention to the town of Castroville and told her we must pass through there. It would be a good joke, visiting a town which appeared to be dedicated to modern Americas’ greatest enemy. I could write something funny in the Blog about it. But the joke was on me. When Amy and I arrived in the town we found not a joke but an artichoke. What we had failed to realise – silly us – was that Castroville styles itself as the “Artichoke Centre of the World” and our visit coincided with the 48th Castroville Artichoke Festival. What a time we had. There was a parade, there we agro-art exhibitions and there were demonstrations of how to cook artichokes. It is a little known fact – other than to people who have spent a couple of days in Castroville during the Festival – that there are hundreds of delicious ways to serve artichokes. A few of the recipes can be found on the Festival website. Amy and I did try a bag of French Fried Artichoke Hearts and then quickly left town feeling ever-so-slightly queasy.

Our week finished back on the coast at Moss Landing which is described by its Chamber of Commerce as “a quaint, historic fishing village that is full of hidden treasures and enjoyable activities”. Other than the rather ugly power plant and the mud-banks, it was. No surprise there then.

Week 15 : Bixby Bridge To Monterey

2007-05-21T16:35:00.000-09:00

There seemed to be a spring in the step of Amy, my soft-coated wheaten terrier, as we embarked on week 15 of our epic journey. Perhaps she could smell civilisation: maybe the salt-encrusted aroma of chicken nuggets and fries was wafting south down the Big Sur coast. Perhaps she had detected another colony of elephant seals. But she was pulling on her leash as we left Bixby Bridge behind us and she provided a little extra motive force as we crept north past the coves, canyons and points in our journey towards Monterey.

We stopped for a late breakfast at the spectacular Rocky Point Restaurant where I was tempted by the Le Roc Corsaire’s Treasure (New York steak and two eggs any style served with country potatoes, black beans, sourdough toast, coffee and fresh orange juice. … all for $23.00) whilst Amy polished off a Buccaneer’s Bounty (Chicken/apple sausages or bacon, three eggs any style served with country potatoes, sourdough toast, coffee and fresh orange juice). I took the advice of the menu and started the day with a glass of champagne and then I started Amy’s day by downing another in her honour. When we set back on our way up Highway One, I was more grateful than ever for the constant pulling of my travelling companion which allowed me to doze and walk at the same time. We were still out in the open countryside – it has now been a good few weeks since we had passed through anything larger than a village (what the Americans call a city). This meant that every time you came across a building of any significance you were anxious to identify its purpose, its history and its secrets.

Thus, on our second day out, when we spotted a group of buildings marked MPSL – clinging to the strip of land between the road and the sea – we were anxious to find out more about them. Amy and I played guessing games. I suggested Missile Propulsion Strategy Laboratory. Amy went – I thought somewhat optimistically - with Meat, Poultry and Seafood Left-overs. In fact we were both wide of the mark, for this was the University of California Marine Pollution Studies Laboratory. Delving into the background of the Laboratory it turned out that Amy and I were not too far out with our guesses. The facility was first build as a missile tracking station by the US Navy, and later became a research base for the infant aquaculture industry. Now it monitors pollution levels in both sea water and fresh water : its local pollution-free sea and rivers providing an excellent control for research purposes.

This feeling of being at one with nature was the theme of the first part of the week. Soon we entered the 3,000 acre Garrapata State Park where “spectacular rocky shorelines play counterpoint with an inland area of steep mountains and deep redwood canyons” The usual Warning Notices from Governor Schwarzenegger said that dogs weren’t allowed in the State Park - other than, in this case, on the road or on the beach – so we had to give the coniferous forests, the Californian Brome and the blue wild rye a rain-check. However, down on the beach we did see some brown pelicans – still quite rare in these parts – and a quite amazing plant which was – we were told - sea lettuce (Dudleya caespitosa).

A little further north we came upon Carmel Highlands and, feeling in need of a little luxury for a change, we were tickled pink to find the Tickle Pink Inn just off the main highway. The enchantment from the natural beauty, we are promised, “captivates your senses and sets a mood which will nurture, renew, and inspire”. The name comes from the fact that the site was originally the home of State Senator Edward and Mrs. Bess Tickle. A great lover of flowers, particularly pink varieties, Mrs. Tickle liked a suggestion to name their hillside stone cottage 'Tickle Pink'. The stone cottage has since disappeared but the name remains. Unfortunately, the Inn is another of those places where dogs are not welcome, so I had to smuggle Amy in in the usual fashion. Having a somewhat overweight long-haired terrier concealed under your pullover gives a whole new meaning to “tickled pink”.

This discrimination against my travelling companion was maintained at our next stop on our journey northwards to Monterey – at Point Lobos State Reserve. Despite the fact that the name translates as Point Of The Sea Wolves, this is not a canine-friendly place and dogs are not allowed anywhere within the confines of the Reserve. So I apologised to Amy and walked on by. This "greatest meeting of land and water in the world" would have to wait for another visit. I feared that Amy might be getting a little upset by this constant rejection, but her spirits remained high, and she was still pulling enthusiastically. As we entered the wonderful city of Carmel-by-the-Sea, I at last understood why. Not only is this spot rated as one of the top ten destinations in the United States by Conde Nast Traveler, not only is it one of the favourite resorts of A List celebrities, not only has it become a Mecca for poets, artists and academics, …. it was recently voted the most dog-friendly city in America.

Wander the delightful streets and you are greeted with signs declaring “Dogs Welcome”. The city authorities produce long lists of all kinds of establishments where man and dog can enjoy life together, side by side in a spirit of harmony and equality. Dogs are allowed on the streets, in the parks on the beach and in the City Hall. There are dog-friendly restaurants, hotels, inns, and shops of all types. There are shops that specialise in clothes for dogs, food for dogs, furniture and fittings for dogs. Amy wandered around with a big smile on her blond furry face. She was in Carmel-by-the-Sea. She was in paradise.

It was hard dragging Amy away, but I wanted to get over the hill and in sight of Monterey before the end of our week. I eventually reached a compromise with her – our continued journey north in exchange for an all-expenses trip to the Diggidy Dog Boutique (it’s a kind of Harvey Nichols for Dogs). After looking around for what seemed like hours she finished up with some Earthbath Deodorizing Spritz ($9.95), a Wrought Iron Antique Rust Feeder Station ($78), and a Bow and Fur Leather Coat ($72).

As we walked north from Carmel and into the outer suburbs of Monterey, I reflected on the beauty of the California coast, the friendliness of its people and the delights that were yet to come. As for Amy, I am not sure what she reflected on. But she had a smile on her face and a batch of Carmel real estate brochures clutched tightly in her paw.

Week 14 Julia Pfeiffer Burns SP To Bixby Bridge

2007-05-11T08:30:00.000-09:00

“Amy and I walked along the poor haunted canyon, under the bridge and came to where those heartless breakers burst in on the sand. The gusts of wind tore the leaves from the trees and plunged them into the surf where they were belted and melted and taken off to sea”.

If that sounds like Jack Kerouac, it’s meant to. Amy and I are walking up the Big Sur coast in California, past the spot where Kerouac came to escape the city and his demons. This is also the coast of drifters and dreamers, artists, craftsmen and the occasional Hollywood star searching for peace and tranquillity.

Our week started at the Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park (JPBSP). You could put forward a reasonable case for renaming this bit of the Californian Coast Pfeiffer County as the Pfeiffer family were early pioneers and are well represented in local place names. As well as the JPBSP there is the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, Pfeiffer Beach, the Pfeiffer Resort and no doubt a brace of Pfeiffer creeks. The original Pfeiffer Resort – the term “resort” was given a fairly liberal interpretation by the Pfeiffers was established in 1902 by John and Florence Pfeiffer. John was an untrained naturalist with am interest in the study of local plants, coastal weather patterns and the habits of birds and animals. The family supported themselves by a combination of subsistence farming, beekeeping, ranching, logging and providing hospitality to visitors. The State Park where we started out from this week was named in memory of their daughter Julia, who maintained the family tradition of being passionately interested in the local flora and fauna.

Just north of the JPBSP we found Castro Canyon – how the name must annoy some righteous Americans – and there we found the wonderful Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn. The website has a whole section on the history of the Inn – which dates back all the way to the 1930s (Americans do so well at making so much out of so little history, and that is not meant as a criticism) – and the Inn is on the National Register of Historic Places. It was founded by Helmuth Deetjen and his wife Helen and quickly benefited from the opening of the then new Highway 1. Over the years “Grandpa Deetjen” as he is now known, added rooms and wooden lodges built in the style of his native Norway. The Inn, which is now run by the non-profit making Deetjens Big Sur Inn Preservation Society, is dedicated to maintaining an enclave of peace and quiet in the busy modern world of California. They boast with pride that mobile phones won’t work in the area, there are no phones or televisions in the rooms, and room doors lock only from the inside. Our stay at the Inn was complicated by the fact that pets are not welcome (this is despite the fact that the Inn proudly displays several photographs of Grandpa Deetjen with his favourite dogs). Amy claimed that this was crass hypocrisy. As I sneaked her into my room hidden beneath my anorak, I told her to shut up.

This whole stretch of coast is dotted with inns, hotels and restaurants of a similar antiquity and in equally attractive surroundings as the Big Sur Inn. A little further up the coast is the Nepenthe Restaurant which has its own webcam so you can get a feel of the atmosphere. At the adjacent Café Kevah, Amy and I enjoyed one of their famous sticky buns ( you can download the recipe from their website) as we took in the view of the coast and the mountains.

Just before stopping for our sticky bun, we had paid a call on the Henry Miller Memorial Library. Miller lived on the Big Sur coast from 1944 until 1962 and wrote some of his most famous books here. At the Memorial Library you can see the usual memorabilia, but the Library also makes a good stab at being more than just a mausoleum to a long-dead writer. They have an active programme of events featuring a wide range of artists and musicians. As we walked north I explained to Amy that, according to Miller, when we reach for a book we are hoping to meet “a man of our own heart, to experience tragedies and delights which we ourselves lack the courage to invite, to dream dreams which will render life more hallucinating, perhaps also to discover a philosophy of life which will make us more adequate in meeting the trials and ordeals which beset us”. She didn’t sound very impressed and said hat she liked a good story herself.

The Big Sur is the name of the region, the name of the coastline, and the name of a clutch of local garages, bakeries, and galleries. Many mistakenly think that the Big Sur is the large volcanic rock outcrop on top of which the Point Sur Lightstation sits. This is not the case. The name comes from the Spanish name for the region “el país grande del sur” which described what was then a largely unexplored region to the south of Monterey. You can get a good taste of what the Big Sur has to offer by looking at the excellent Big Sur Guide which is published by the Big Sur Chamber Of Commerce.

The Lightstation is a noble building which forms the focal point of Point Sur State Historic Park. Sitting 361 feet above the surf on a large volcanic rock, Point Sur is the only complete turn-of-the century Lightstation open to the public in California, and is on the National Register of Historic Places. First lit on August 1, 1889, the lighthouse has remained in continuous operation. Lighthouse keepers and their families lived at the site from 1889 to 1974 when the lighthouse was automated. The only way to visit the Lightstation, and indeed the rock itself, is to go on one of the official tours. But like too many things in this part of the world, dogs are not allowed. They do run moonlight tours and for a while Amy and I did consider the old dog hidden under the anorak approach, but decided against it. A quick look at the Wikipedia entry for the Lightstation told us all we could reasonably want to know (the light gives a white flash every 15 seconds whilst the fog signal is a group of two blasts every 60 seconds - blast two seconds, silent one second, blast three seconds, silent fifty-four seconds) so we sat and ate the last of our sticky buns instead.

We followed the road to the north of Point Sur, heading for the point which would mark the end of our wanderings for this week – Bixby Bridge. There is an admirable academic paper on the building of Bixby Bridge available on the Pelican Network website. I got quite enthusiastic about the mechanics of it all and explained to Amy that the bridge was constructed to withstand a stress (f) at the mid-point where f = H = 1530666.5 = 472.4 psi A 3240*. Once again, Amy was less than impressed and simply looked over the side of the bridge and picked the remaining bits of sticky bun from between her teeth.