Famous Roads. From Palmdale our route ducked around Santa Clarita, then headed to the coast on California 128. We drove up the coast a bit on the 101/1 and when the two roads split, we stayed on 101.While we had followed old Route 66 on part of our way over here, we were now following the route of Spanish/Basque explorer Juan Batista de Anza. He led a band of soldiers and families from the Presidio in Tubac south of Tucson to the coast and north to San Francisco bay, and here we were taking some of the same route.

Juan Batista DeAnza did not have such a nice rest area when he camped near here.

Solveng CA

Solvang, where we stopped for lunch. I had always wanted to take a look at this lovely Danish village. I was glad we got to make a brief stop, and hope that some day we can stay a day or two and follow the scents of Danish baked goods into the half-timbered buildings that also house craft shops and hotels.

Art in the Fields As we zipped north on 101 (after a short stretch on U.S. 5) we passed miles and miles of vineyards, fields of leafy vegetables and trucks loaded with garlic.  Approaching Salinas, we saw farm workers gathering around their dented red pick-up truck–but wait–those people are too big to be real.  And sure enough, they were lifelike, but two-dimensional.  As we drove north we saw at least ten more of these depictions of farmers doing various chores. Never found out from whence came this delightful art project.

Ken and Doris Day

Carmel Besides the wind-sculpted cypress trees, the cool morning mist,dramatic cliffs above a sandy beach, we found many reasons to love Carmel. We saw the house that poet Robinson Jeffers built and Ken looked forward to “meeting” Doris Day. Although she still lives there, the closest he got was a movie poster in the lounge of the Cypress Inn, a dog-friendly hotel that Ms. Day owns.

View from Tickled Pink room

We also visited the Tickle Pink Inn, named for a Senator Tickle. Of the many luxurious digs in Carmel, this must have the most amazing views–from every room’s balcony.

After trying Katy’s Place where the tough choices include 16 kinds of Eggs Benedict, we went the next day to The Little Swiss Cafe, with simpler food, but amazing art by André Balyon. André paints gorgeous sky-filled landscapes and realist art, but here he lets his sense of humor out to play.

Spring, by Andre Balyon

Detail of "Spring"

Now, at first glance that is a pretty picture, but play “what is wrong with this picture?” Isn’t that the couple from American Gothic? And its small in this image, but that’s Puss in Boots fishing in the canal. Here’s a closeup to show the grandest joke.

Our Carmel stay was over, but we had one more stop–The Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California.

John Steinbeck and Charlie

Carmel Beach Sunset

Photos of Balyon paintings by Andre Balyon. Please go to his gallery to see his “serious” works, although the humorous ones at Little Swiss Cafe are seriously good. Vera Marie Badertscher took all other photos and I reserve all rights. Ask before you use.

Now, you know how the kids always want to know what you brought them when you come home from a trip? Well we brought you something. Persuade me that you should have a t-shirt from the John Steinbeck Center that says, “There are never enough books.” Runner up gets a bookmark listing all Steinbeck’s books. Hurry! You have only until this coming Friday midnight. Good luck. (Check general contest rules here.)

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We drove two days to get there, stayed two days and drove two days back home. Roughly 1800 miles, Ken says. Definitely not the ideal vacation and certainly not the classic wandering road trip–but a mini reunion with beloved relatives made it worthwhile. And even on a short trip, we make discoveries.

Here’s what we managed to see and do on our trip from Tucson AZ to Carmel CA and back.

The Kofa Cafe, an “Undiscovered Gem of Arizona”. Despite the fact it sits on a little-traveled byway, the Kofa draws visitors from around the world, which is why “undiscovered” is in quotation marks. See more in this little slide show. (From Tucson,to avoid Phoenix, we take 85 north from Gila Bend to US 10. Then we go north from Rt. 10 toward Vicksburg, and then take 72 toward Parker to continue west.)

Blue Highways Despite all the times we have driven between AZ and CA, we drove on roads we had never been on.

Along California Route 62 heading for Joshua Tree National Monument

We avoided driving the freeways through the northern edge of Los Angles, instead taking desolate desert roads that connected just enough of civilization that we could find food. Vegetation changed from creosote to ocotillo and mesquite to the eerie Joshua trees.

Historic Town Murals Twenty Nine Palms stretches for miles and miles and miles. At least ramshackle homes and official looking street signs (Sandy Claws Lane) sit just off the highway. But the town itself proclaims “The Town of Murals.” And the murals in the business district show scenes from the town’s history–like this one of the Dirty Sock Camp. The legend explains that when the Miners had nothing else they would strain the mud through an old sock to find the tiny flakes of gold.

Dirty Sock Camp Mural

We followed Rt. 62 from Parker to where it intersected with Rt. 247 going north and curving West again toward Victorville on Rt. 18. Then we took a wrong turn which took us to our next discovery.

Apple Valley.  Ken flashed back to his boyhood and informed me that this had been the home of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Sure enough, we were driving on Happy Trails road and crossed Dale Evans Parkway.  We  thought there might be a museum, however the museum was in Victorville, then moved to Branson Missouri and recently closed for lack of funds. How sad.

Comfort Suites, Victorville We decided to stick with one chain of motels on this trip, and at Victorville, a town that marks the divide between the desert and the inland farming valleys of California, we stayed at the 3rd-ranked lodging on Trip Advisor. The Comfort Suites had very friendly employees, a large room and a great shower head. Although it is just off the freeway, we didn’t hear a sound. We walked across the street to a Marie Callendar’s restaurant where we had a mediocre dinner.

Designer McDonald’s. Ronald McDonald would never recognize this place. Besides serving fancy coffee concoctions–which most McDonald’s now do–the interior design shouted sophistication. Indeed this McDonald’s in Palmdale  looked more like a high class lounge than a hamburger joint. It featured 21st century  orange square stools at a molded white bar, overstuffed black easy chairs, and asymmetrical arrangements of booths and tables.   All that was missing was the bouncer guarding the velvet rope that kept out the hoi-polloi. (The New York Times recently wrote about design in a London McDonald’s and this article talks about some new design in New York City Micky D’s.)

All pictures by Vera Marie Badertscher, all rights reserved. This trip was all on our own dime, so those establishments mentioned are not sponsors.

More to come on this road trip next Tuesday.

What’s the quickest road trip for the longest distance that you ever took? And I’m now on a hunt for these designer McDonald’s. Have you spotted one?

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5/25 FIRST GRAND PRIZE WINNER: See the contest page

Two prizes left plus THREE grand prizes. See the contest page and enter before May 31 midnight. Now back to our program in progress…

Steinbeck's California book cover

Destination: Steinbeck’s California

Book: A Journey into Steinbeck’s California by Susan Shillinglaw

A Guest post by Dr. Jessie Voigts

One of the very best books I’ve ever read is featured here in our Book Review this week. Published by Roaring Forties Press and authored by Susan Shillinglaw, A Journey into Steinbeck’s California is a treasure. Full of gorgeous photos by Nancy Burnett, artwork of the times, photos of Steinbeck’s contemporaries, and in-depth sidebars of places, people, and events, this book delves deeply into Steinbeck and California.

Author Susan Shillinglaw is a Professor of English at San Jose State University and Scholar-in-Residence at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas. For eighteen years, she was Director of the Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University, where she edited the award-winning journal Steinbeck Studies (previously The Steinbeck Newsletter), published twice yearly. She was a consultant to Harpo Productions for Oprah’s website on East of Eden and frequently consults for popular media as well as scholarly projects—most recently for a State Department-sponsored film made by a Georgian (formerly a part of the USSR) television station.

We were lucky enough to sit down and talk with Susan about her book.
Wandering Educators: Please tell us about your book, A Journey into Steinbeck’s California.

Susan Shillinghlaw: The book is a hybrid text, part biography, part analysis and discussion of Steinbeck’s work, part social history, part travelogue.

It was great fun to write and compile (selecting sites to photograph, deciding what information to “box”).

The approach is holistic. I look at Steinbeck’s sense of place and how various locations in California both shaped his writing and how he, in turn, was shaped by the places he inhabited. For Steinbeck, place always concerned the intersection of human history and natural history. It was stimulating to think about how human histories and nature, cultural artifacts and social issues intersected in Steinbeck’s fiction.

A novel like Cannery Row, for example, draws from Steinbeck’s interest in intertidal ecology, his love of local history, his friendship with Ed Ricketts,[Note: Ed Ricketts home and laboratory are open for a tour on his birthday each year. Check the Steinbeck Center in Salinas.] his stint as a war correspondent in World War II, and the local itself—where Pacific meets shore. I hope this book gives that rich sense of Steinbeck living in place. He makes readers feel and “participate” in the California landscape, and I hope that resonance is clear in this book.

WE: The photos and illustrations are intriguing – can you tell us more about that?

SS: To write the book, I revisited Stanford archives and Salinas archives, as well as several local archives: mine was a treasure hunt for local resources and libraries are a great source of information. Many of the period photographs came from these tiny archives that I dug through in Pacific Grove, Monterey, and Salinas.

The contemporary photographs were quite another kind of research. The superb photographer, Nancy Burnett, accompanied me on trips around Steinbeck locales. We spent a day tramping around Salinas, looking for interesting ways to photograph buildings. We strolled through the hills trying to capture the colors of the grasses and the hue of poppies and lupins. Jolly fun to take photos of all the places one knows well.

When we were walking in Pacific Grove one day, a man invited Nancy and me to look at his attic, where festoons of canvas still could be seen, remnants of the original tent that stood in Pacific Grove. Houses were simply built around the tents. We were able to photograph Steinbeck’s house on 11th Street in Pacific Grove, a magical day. A family member gave us a key and told us to photograph anything we wanted—that day we discovered the desk that Steinbeck and Ricketts took to Sea of Cortez, hidden in a shed.

To read the rest of the interview with author Susan Shillinglaw, please see Wandering Educators.

Dr. Jessie Voigts

Dr. Jessie Voigts is the Publisher of  WanderingEducators.com and contributes each month to A Traveler’s Library. She has a doctorate in International Education, and is passionate about intercultural learning. She and her husband are Worldschooling their daughter, and enjoying every minute of it. She is also a nature photographer and lives on a lake.

I’m glad that Jessie decided to talk with the author of A Journey Into Steinbeck’s California, because I’m planning to return to Steinbeck when the Great American Road Trip visits California toward the end of the year — or early next year.And if you’re going to California between now and then, I encourage you to pick up this terrific book.

More Steinbeck at A Traveler’s Library: 11 Literary Road Trips; Top 5 American Road Trip Books ; Steinbeck and McMurtry.

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Travel Tuesday

Destination: Lake Tahoe

Book: Roughing It by Mark Twain

Am I awake or am I dreaming?  I am standing on the edge of a sapphire lake, bright red and green canoes bobbing in front of me along a pier and white, triangular handkerchiefs chasing each other across the water. Pine trees scratch at the blue air and mountains guard the horizon. (You can see some pictures at the end of this post.)

The handkerchiefs are actually sails. On Sunday an organized, but informal regatta takes place way out there in the middle of Lake Tahoe.

Samuel Clemens said of his first view of Lake Tahoe, which divides northern California from Nevada:

At last the lake burst upon us–a noble sheet of blue water lifted six thousand three hundred feet above the level of the sea, and walled in by a rim of snow-clad mountain peaks that towered aloft three thousand feet higher still! As it lay there with the shadows of the mountains brilliantly photographed upon its still surface, I thought it must surely be the fairest picture the whole world affords.

Who am I to argue with Mark Twain? This quote comes from Roughing It, a road trip of travel in the Western United States before there were roads–or at least in the mid-19th century, before there were highways.  Roughing It is a wonderful book, not just for the Lake Tahoe sections, but for the personality profiles and the humorous portrayal of the West of stagecoach and wagon days. If you are heading West, by all means, read Roughing It.

I started out to write about Lake Tahoe, and here is Mark Twain in the middle of things. But he makes good company, and I intend to bring him back often this year, because 2010 marks the 175th anniversary of his birth and the 100th anniversary of his death.

Here are eight reasons to go to Lake Tahoe:

• The drive around Lake Tahoe is probably the most beautiful in America–or at least in the top 3.
• You can participate in every active sport you can think of when you visit there, depending on the season.
• The Godfather movie was partly filmed there.
• The 1960 Winter Olympics took place at Squaw Valley, which today hosts skiers in the winter and golfers in the summer at beautiful resorts and rental homes.
• The historic mansions that ring the lake, including one where the eccentric owner used to ferry show girls in from the Cal-Neva lodge and let his pet elephant and tiger wander around his thousands of acres. (Thunderbird Lodge)
• The California and Nevada state parks provide camping, nature walks and family beaches and picnic areas.
• Great places to stay like the laid back resort in Squaw Valley, Resort at Squaw Creek.
• Fun dining places like Sunnyside right on the lake and fancier ones like Graham’s  at Squaw Valley.

But mostly, just go see how beautiful it is. Every time I go, I am amazed all over again.

——

Great Big Giveaway Book Today: Weird World, a book of silliness. Pictures of strange and unbelievable and funny things from around the world. See my review here. Leave a comment below naming the book in today’s Giveaway to win this book and be entered in the Grand Prize drawing. Only one day to win! Deadline is midnight tonight(Tuesday)MST. Complete rules here.

Remember if you subscribe by e-mail to A Traveler’s Library, you get THREE chances at the Grand Prize.

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Have you been to Lake Tahoe? Have a favorite place there? Have you read a book set at Lake Tahoe?

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Travel Tuesday

The sailor's window in the Chapel at Liberty Station

This post is the promised part two of our Thanksgiving excursion to San Diego. (Part One — San Diego’s Gas Lamp District and Space Ship in Gila Bend are here).

After a few days  in the Gas Lamp District of San Diego, we moved to one of the two new hotels in Liberty Station. The hub-bub and hand wringing that surrounded BRAC (Base Realignment and Closing) Act in  2005 sounded a lot like the acronym.  Nobody liked the idea of having a major economic engine yanked out of their community. However some communities managed to make lemonade out of the lemons.

San Diego became a Navy Town in 1923 when Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin Roosevelt launched the Navy Training Station. The base trained nearly 2 million young people through the early nineties. While San Diego’s effort at re-constituting the base area still needs some finishing touches, the conversion of the Naval Training Center to Liberty Station will impress any visitor who hasn’t been to San Diego for a while.

Downtown San Diego from tip of Point Loma

For starters, the Point Loma location is fantastic–right on the bay, near downtown, and near the airport. (A little TOO near the airport for some purposes, since a flight path crosses the area.)  Because of its location, the two hotels, a Courtyard by Marriott  and a Hilton Homewood Suites, have the highest hotel occupancy in San Diego County. In our opinion, the Homewood Suites rates way to high in user-rated sites. Yes, it was spotlessly clean, but the rooms are tiny with tacky finish, like no door or panel hiding the sink plumbing. And for a hotel where people tend to stay a little longer, they provide totally inadequate storage space. Plus the rates are much higher than similar properties–because of the occupancy rate mentioned above.

A whole community has grown up here on the 350- acre development with homes, offices  and schools. But the traveler will be much more interested in the core of the project, the 26 historic buildings under the care of the non-profit  NTC Promenade.

Before leaving the commercial section, though, don’t miss the 9-hole public golf course, in use since the base began and recently redeveloped. And visitors enjoy the acres and acres of open space along the boat canal.  Bikers will appreciate a 2.5 mile bike route that can lead you all the way down to Seaport Village, an area of shops and restaurants near downtown. Also, I must mention the restaurants at Liberty Station–from quick food of several ethnic derivations, to a raucous diner, Corvette,  a simple and splendid natural foods choice, Tender Greens,  and a high-end Italian restaurant, Solare and several other choices. You will not go hungry here. And if you want to picnic by the canal, a Von’s grocery store can provide all you need.

Art installation honoring refuge children at Libery Station

But the major attraction for travelers here lies at the Western end of the development, where graceful old Spanish Revival-style buildings surround courtyards and former parade grounds. Granted this is a restoration work in progress, but the parts that are completed, like the gem of a chapel, perfect for weddings; and the installations of outdoors art, enthralled me. You can see the beginnings of a center for small businesses that purvey arts, next door to buildings converted to artists’ studios and dance studios.  The charming thing here is that a visitor can walk down the hall and watch the artists at work–painters or dancers. More arts groups are moving in every day and all the buildings are open to the public.

The foundation needs to raise money to finish the remaining buildings, including a big barn of an auditorium where Bob Hope and others entertained the troops. One dancer we met in our wander through the halls practically did a petite jeté at the thought of having a permanent place to perform.

If you want to know more about the history of the base while you are there, grab a good map of Liberty station and dial 619-342-8021 on your cell phone. The narrator does not direct you from place to place, so be sure you have a map.

Do you know about other successful conversions of military bases? Have one in your city? Have visited one?  Tell us about them, please.

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When you live in Tucson, you take travel to San Diego for granted. But mostly those are summer trips. “San Diego is Tucson’s beach,” we say, when people tease us about being too far from the ocean.

Ask anyone how far away it is, and they’ll say 7 hours, or maybe optimistically 5 1/2 hours. In the West, distance is measured in hours on the road.

I want to share three new-0ld things we found on our Thanksgiving trip to San Diego–a hotel and its neighborhood; a new development on an historic strip of land; and a stop along the way.

Space Age Restaurant, Gila Bend AZ

On the somewhat boring drive across some bare desert between here and there, it somehow seems normal to stop when you see a flying saucer on a roof, particularly when you have three young boys in tow as we did years ago. That would be the Space Age Restaurant at Gila Bend, Arizona. (I grabbed the picture here from the Best Western Space Age Lodge site.) Delighted to see that it looked the same as it did 40 years ago, we pulled in. Inside, I realized everything was new. Turns out it had burned down and been rebuilt, only better. Astronaut murals, shiny red booths, and turkey dinner with all the trimmings for $10.95 (in 2009!).

Gas Lamp Quarter, San Diego

In San Diego,  since it was not beach weather (tell that to all those surfers off Point Loma) we headed to the Gaslamp Quarter. Situated between the bay and downtown the area was, in the 1860′s, the happening place for commerce in San Diego. By the time we were visiting with our children, it was an area to stay away from. What was happening in the seedy neighborhood ran to $5 hotel rooms, porn shops and loan sharks. However the area has rebounded with restored Victorian buildings, restaurants like Aqua 2 (due-ay) partner to a Florence, Italy restaurant,and bars like The Field whose owners imported its dark 2-foot-high stools,wall-wide bar back and everything else from Ireland. The new Petco Ball Park borders Gaslamp, and from Hotel Indigo, where we stayed, you could look down into the field.

Hotel Indigo, San Diego

Hotel Indigo, the newest brand of the IHG Hotel group, who operate Holiday Inns, Intercontinental and other brands, wows customers with its chic but friendly air. Sometimes in  super modish hotels I get the feeling that I need to submit my wardrobe to some arbiter of style before I can register–I’m not hip enough and they KNOW. But here the atmosphere is fun and casual in the midst of drop dead gorgeous touches. Tables in lobby that look like bleached coral reef and tables in rooms that look like tree trunks. Color combos in the room–chocolate brown/ hot pink/purple. Local artist’s work based on nature.

Hotel Indigo Guests

Wood laminate floors in the spacious rooms are easier to keep clean when you have dogs as guests. Oh, yes, the hotel is friendly to dogs, too. A water dish and a dish of treats sit by the bellman’s desk outside. But then that is par for the course in this neighborhood where we saw people walking dogs everywhere, water dishes outside many store and cafe doors, and wonder of wonder–no poop on the sidewalks!

Huge window walls in the lobby slide open to allow natural ventilation and save on heat and air conditioning.  Materials were selected because of their eco-friendliness. Fire pits in the roof-top terrace are lined with recycled bits of windshield glass. A “live” roof puts plants on top of the hotel for insulation. This and many more innovations won this hotel the coveted LEED certification.

While in San Diego, I paid a nostalgic visit to the Naval Training Station, where my eldest son, and thousands of other young men took basic training. But like the Gaslamp Quarter, the area has undergone drastic changes and I’ll tell you about it next Tuesday.

Ooops! Forgot the Disclaimer. Not that anyone really pays any attention. Hotel Indigo hosted my stay for two nights in the hopes that I would write about them some time. We liked them so much, that we extended the stay on our own dime. So that’s a 2/3 deal?

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