Drama on the road to Nelson, pretty clapboard housing mountain idyll . . . and BC’s capital of cannabis
June 13th 2023, Nelson, British Columbia. It is mosquito season right now in Canada, and sometimes, especially close to a river in the early evening, the little bastards really have a field day. That was the case when I pulled into the Kettle River RV park and...
Here’s to Canada . . . to bears, a horny, hubcap adoring bird and a banjaxed sprocket
June 4th 2023, Kettle River, British Colombia. It's early days but Canada is turning out to be everything I thought -- hoped -- it would be: a place of extraordinarily beautiful countryside full of snow-topped Alpine mountains, their slopes blanketed by Douglas fir...
The Cape that does not Disappoint
June 2nd 2023, Ilwaco, Washington state I scooted up Interstate 5 and went straight through, or rather past, the Oregon capital, Portland. My loss, I expect, but I just couldn't see any reason to delve into another city, so I kept on going -- crossing the...
Oregon – the America of youthful memory
May 28th 2023, Sunset Cove, Oregon. Oregon is the America of my youthful memory. It was fashioned in my mind in dentist and doctor's waiting rooms where lying about as distractions to make the time pass were copies of National Geographic magazine. And in those pages...
California’s redwoods are like cathedrals of nature
I left David and Shao-ying revitalised and full of optimism about life and people and the way ahead. My mood was helped when, a fellow in Mendocino said that a guy who ran a bike shop beside the gas station in Arena -- "He's great; knows about bikes," -- turned out to...
The house is so close to the redwood forest that it appears to be inside it
May 19th 2013, Anchor Bay, California. The coast of central California as one progresses north takes one's breath away. Ragged with cliffs and inlets, the Pacific -- blue and sparkling on this sunny , early summer day -- has carved out bay after little bay and the...
San Francisco has stolen a bit of my heart
May 17th 2023, San Francisco. San Francisco is ridiculously beautiful. At every turn, up every hill, across every vista by the bay, the city is just stunning. And it is not a strained, forced beauty. It is not beating you over the head like, say, Hollywood -- 'look at...
Breakfast at Mel’s
May 17th 2023, San Francisco. If you're staying on Lombard, the best place to have breakfast is Mel's Drive-in Diner at Cow Hollow. It's at the bottom end of the street, the Marina end, which itself leads onto San Francisco's Golden Gate bridge about two miles away. I...
In Steinbeck’s California, the crops are still harvested by Mexicans
May 8th 2023, Salinas. Travelling between Los Angeles and San Francisco, it's impossible -- for me at any rate -- to escape the literary history of the area. Salinas, Monterey and the fertile flatlands between the mountains all provide the settings for three of John...
Heather talks in that urgent way people under pressure sometimes do
May 14th 2023, San Francisco. Tenderloin is a district in downtown San Francisco where many of the city's homeless live in tents on the pavements. Heather Leonard (37) arrived there a while back and tells her story in the urgent and often disconnected way that people...