Northern California History Travel Adventures: 35 Suggested Trips

By Lee Foster

Lee Foster invites you to explore the history of the San Francisco Bay Area and then roam all of Northern California. He has wandered the territory, from the Oregon border south through Sequoia National Park and the Big Sur Coast. California history, both human culture and man’s interaction with nature, is his favorite subject. He delights in the concept of man saving and preserving nature, a notion to which California made major contributions, starting with John Muir. In 35 suggested trips, Lee guides you to explore for yourself. What might you ask and discover as the answers in your trips?

What will you discover?

The Table of Contents, with its 35 alluring options, is your best enticement to consider the book.San Francisco Bay Area

1. San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge: Spanning the Gap
2. San Francisco's Cable Cars: Ride the Cars, Visit the Museum
3. Historic Chinatown San Francisco: The Cantonese Enclave
4. San Francisco’s Victorian Architecture: The Legacy that Survived the 1906 Quake and Fire
5. Alcatraz and Angel Islands in San Francisco Bay: The Secure Prison and the Island of Immigrant Hope
6. Berkeley: Free Spirits and Free Speech at the University of California
7. Silicon Valley’s High-Tech Heritage: Three Great Museums Tell the Computer/Technology Story of Modern California
8. Visiting Leland Stanford’s “Farm”: Now Stanford University in California
9. San Mateo’s California Coast-side: Shipwrecks and the Portuguese Coast North of San Francisco
10. Sir Francis Drake’s California Landing: Where in Point Reyes?
11. The Russian Outpost in California: Fort Ross on the Mendocino Coast
12. Art and the Gray Whale: The Town of Mendocino,
California Napa and Sonoma
13. The Visionary of California’s Calistoga: Sam Brannan’s Hot Springs
14. “The Wine Is Bottled Poetry”: Writer Robert Louis Stevenson in California’s Napa Valley
15. Mariano Vallejo’s California Hospitality: The Sonoma Town Square
16. The California Socialist as Literary Entrepreneur: Jack London’s Valley of the Moon
17. The Father of California Agriculture: Luther Burbank’s Legacy in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County
Redwood Country
18. Redwood Grandeur Along California’s Highway 101: Avenue of the Giants and the Company Town of Scotia
19. Eureka: California’s Redwood Lumber Baron Town
20. Redwood National and State Parks: Saving the Tallest Trees in Far Northern
California Shasta-Cascade Region
21. Apocalypse in California: When Lassen Peak Erupted in 1914
22. Shasta City and Shasta Dam in California: The Northern Gold Rush and the Enduring Wealth of Water
Sacramento and the Gold Country
23. Dreams of an Agricultural Empire in California: John Sutter’s Vision in Sacramento
24. The Iron Road Across the California Sierra: Old Sacramento and the Railroad Museum
25. One Lucky Day at the Sawmill: How James Marshall Discovered Gold in California Along the American River at Coloma
26. Rambling California’s Historic Gold Country Highway 49: Starting with Columbia, the Preserved Gold Rush Town
27. Meandering the California Delta: The Chinese Town of LockeThe Sierra
28. The Discovery and Saving of California’s Yosemite: A Militiaman’s Emotions
29. Yosemite’s Wawona: A Historic Hotel and the Big Trees of California
30. East Side of the California Sierra: Natural Beauty and the Struggle for Water
31. The California Bristlecone Pines: Oldest Living Things on Earth
32. A Tale of California’s Mammoth Trees: The Giant Inland Sequoias of Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks
Monterey and Santa Cruz
33. Father Junipero Serra’s California Missions: His Headquarters in Carmel
34. Monterey: California’s First Capital
35. California’s Santa Cruz: The Beach Boardwalk and The Progressive University

The Author:
Lee Foster is an award-winning travel writer/photographer living in Berkeley, CA. His work has won n

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lee Foster
• Release date: Aug 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9780578525464

Lee Foster

Lee Foster, born in 1943, grew up in a Minnesota of fishing for black bass, playing baseball, and hunting for ring-necked pheasants. He was the son of a factory owner in Mankato, a small city of 30,000. He took an under¬graduate degree in Great Books at the University of Notre Dame and a graduate degree in English-American Literature at Stanford University, where he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. After these years of reading, some travel in Europe, and an increasing interest in photog-raphy, he began his own books of fiction and nonfiction. His main attention in recent decades has been travel writ-ing/photography. He now lives in Berkeley, California. His range of travel journalism can be seen on his Foster Travel Publishing website at http://www.fostertravel.com. He has been active in developing travel articles, photos, books, ebooks, apps, websites, and now audiobooks. Some of his work has been with traditional publishers; other efforts have been as an independent publisher. Over the years, Lee has published travel writing/photography in almost all the leading U.S. travel magazines and newspapers. His book partnerships include the use of his travel photos in more than 300 Lonely Planet books. His main personal books/ebooks are listed on his website at http://www.fostertravel.com/shop/. His recent works currently available include: 2015: Minnesota Boy: Growing Up in Mid-America, Mid-20th Centu-ry (book, ebook, a re-publication on his 1970 book Just 25 Cents and Three Wheaties Boxtops) 2015-2009: Three Sutro Media travel apps: San Francisco Travel and Pho-to Guide, Berkeley Essential Guide, and Washington DC Travel and Photo Guide 2014: Travels in an American Imagination: The Spiritual Geography of Our Time (audiobook in 2014, book from 2005, ebook from 2013) 2013: Northern California Travel: The Best Options (book, ebook, website) Back Roads California (publisher Dorling Kindersley, co-author, book) 2009: The Photographer’s Guide to San Francisco (publisher Coun-tryman Press, book, ebook) The Photographer’s Guide to Washington DC (publisher Coun-tryman Press, co-author, book, ebook) 2002: Northern California History Weekends (publisher Globe Pe-quot, book)

Book preview

Introduction:

About Your Author Lee Foster

Lee is an award-winning travel writer/photographer and long-time resident of Berkeley, across the Bay from San Francisco. His work has won eight Lowell Thomas Awards, the highest awards in travel journalism. He has been named Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year. All the write-ups and photos here are from Foster.

Lee has several parallel books/ebooks on San Francisco and Northern California. You can see them on his Amazon Author Page (http://amzn.to/1jl9Lnz) and in independent bookstores(http://www.indiebound.org/).

Much of his travel journalism can be seen on his website www.fostertravel.com. About 200 of his 500+ worldwide travel writing/photo coverages on the website are about San Francisco and Northern California. The others range from Egypt to Bali.

Search for a SF/NorCal subject or worldwide subject on the website and find Lee’s presentations, all available for free, but requiring that you endure the ads on the website.

You can sign up to get Lee’s email communication (sent once a week) on a new or updated article for that week on his website.

Lee’s travel writing/photos have appeared in almost all the major U.S. travel magazines and newspapers, plus in more than 300 Lonely Planet travel books.

His 7,000 digitally-ready photos are available for license at http://stockphotos.fostertravel.com. Most of his licensing of photos occurs to major magazines and book companies, from the local AAA magazine Via to National Geographic.

However, Lee also offers an inexpensive Personal Publishing secure license for $20 to individuals who simply want a photo for their blog, website, book, or wall décor. Lee encourages publishers to property license writing or photos from creative content providers. He discourages the use of free content, which leads ultimately to the impoverishment of all content creators and the decline of viable creative efforts.

Contact Lee at [e-mail] or 510/549-2202 if you have any questions or comments.

About This Book

New aspects for all these Lee’s travel articles/book chapters constantly emerge. Your experience of travel, whether good or bad, is helpful to Lee as he continues to evaluate what should be emphasized in this highly curated list of articles/chapters.

Lee believes that few areas in the world have done as much as SF/NorCal to preserve the environment or improve the basics of travel, including attractions/dining/lodging.

SF/NorCal ranks as Lee’s favorite place on Earth. The more he has seen of the world, perhaps about 300 worldwide destinations, the more he appreciates his California home territory. He hopes that this presentation makes your own exploration more enjoyable and insightful.

The history of SF/Norcal intrigues Lee. How did California become one of the most dynamic places on earth today?

Strategy of This Book

When exploring San Francisco and Northern California, what should you see and do?

Lee’s favorite subjects tend to be nature and human culture, especially as they mix and create the world of today.

Clearly, one rationale for adventure would the glorious history of the Golden State. How did modern Northern California become what it is? Where would you go to experience the most interesting stories about this development? How is nature preserved possibly the most important historic story in the region?

To answer your questions, Lee has written this book Northern California History Travel Adventures: 35 Suggested Trips.

As you learn about Northern California, some questions will emerge for the curious:

*What was California like at the time of Spanish contact, when mission founder Junipero Serra settled in Carmel?

*Why did the Russians establish an outpost at Fort Ross on the Mendocino Coast?

*How did the discovery of gold at Coloma on the American River in 1848 quickly transform California during the Gold Rush, with Sacramento as the logical capital?

*How did Leland Stanford and his Big Four colleagues arrange the building of the transcontinental railroad, starting east from Sacramento? Stanford ended up so rich that he founded a University.

In more modern times, you might wonder:

*How was the Golden Gate Bridge, one of the most-beloved human artifacts on the planet, built in the 1930s?

*Where can you go today in the Silicon Valley to see museums that show the genius of computer/software inventiveness in modern California?

*How was the idea of preserving nature possibly the most important contribution of all to the world from California? John Muir was one of the instigators and his beloved Yosemite became a national model. Muir’s contribution was memorialized forever, by a benefactor, in the naming of a choice redwood grove near San Francisco as Muir Woods.

For Each Suggested Trip

Lee Foster Provides for You:

In Brief (What is this chapter about, in a sentence or two)

The Historic Story (The tale and rationale for your trip in more depth)

Getting There

Be Sure to See (A curated list of main attractions for the trip)

Best Time of Year (Some items have a seasonal aspect)

Lodging (One good option)

Dining (One good option)

For Further Information (The local tourism offices)

Lee Foster has narrowed the choices to his 35 top recommendations for this book.

Beyond the 35, Lee has more ideas. On his website at www.fostertravel.com he adds another 17, as articles, as a supplement. That means 35 plus 17 or a total of one outing per week, or 52 adventures, for a year. Lee emphasized all 52 in an earlier edition of this book, titled Northern California History Weekends. But 35 now seems like a more manageable selection.

San Francisco Bay Area

1.

San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge:

Spanning the Gap

Baker Beach, Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California, USA

Baker Beach, Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California.

The Golden Gate Bridge symbolizes the joy and beauty that so many San Francisco visitors experience when they encounter The City.

In Brief

The Golden Gate Bridge is an object of national adulation as one of America's best-loved landmarks. When seen from either the southern or northern visitor viewpoints or from the deck of an excursion boat, the Golden Gate Bridge is a pleasing sight.

Its suspension construction and proportions are graceful. Its orange-vermilion color contrasts nicely against the blue sky and sea and the green hills of Marin County to the north. The ship lane below the Golden Gate Bridge has become its own bridge to the orient, adding to the mystique of the site.

The Historic Story

Building the bridge required both political vision and technical imagination. Emperor Norton, a San Francisco character of the 1860s, is credited with the first public proposals for a bridge.

In the 1870s railroad magnate Charles Crocker presented plans for a bridge. However, the task was enormous and public interest dwindled. Then in 1916, a newspaperman named James Wilkins launched an editorial campaign favoring a bridge.

The idea appealed to North Bay residents who were transporting their cars across San Francisco Bay on time-consuming ferries. Spanning the Golden Gate, however, seemed more like a dream than a possibility.

In 1917, San Francisco's chief engineer, M. M. O'Shaughnessy, enlisted the aid of a Chicago engineer, Joseph B. Strauss. He asked Strauss to design and build a bridge across the Golden Gate.

Strauss followed the project attentively for the next two decades. In his lifelong record, Strauss, a distinguished bridge builder, engineered construction of more than 400 bridges from Leningrad to New Jersey. A statue at the south end of the bridge acknowledges his role as The Man Who Built the Bridge.

The political hurdles required to build the bridge were considerable. In 1930 voters in the six counties making up the Bridge District approved issuing the bonds to finance it. This act required some vision as the nation waded through the Depression.

In January 1933, Strauss began construction of the towers. Admirably, the bridge was finished on time and under its $35 million budget. The last bridge bond payment was in 1971.

Today's bridge toll goes entirely to maintaining the bridge, including its never-ending schedule of painting. One technical challenge in the 1930s construction involved the 4,200-foot length of the bridge. Many said the gap could not be spanned successfully.

Building the Golden Gate Bridge

Strauss weighed plans for a suspension bridge, which risked being too flimsy, and a cantilever bridge, which seemed too heavy for the site. His original plans called for a design incorporating both ideas.

From an aesthetic point of view, his later decision to focus just on the suspension approach proved far superior. At that time, a suspension bridge of this length had not yet been built.

The location of the bridge, bearing the full brunt of the ocean elements, exacerbated potential problems of design. Winds of 20-60 miles per hour are commonplace. A broadside wind of 100 miles per hour produces a midspan sway of 21 feet, which had to be allowed for.

Heat and cold expansion and contraction of the bridge can cause movement that raises and lowers the bridge by 10 feet.

The depth of the water underneath the bridge and the speed of the current also presented major technical challenges.

Pacific tidal pressures are enormous in the narrow outlet, especially when the 7-1/2-knot tidal outrush combines with the swift-flowing waters of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers that empty through this gap into the ocean. Strauss decided to anchor one of the 65-story towers right in the waterway, 1,215 feet from shore.

The 36-1/2-inch-thick cables manufactured for the bridge were the largest bridge cables ever made, incorporating 80,000 miles of wire, each about the thickness of a pencil. Both of the two cables have a tensile strength of 200 million pounds.

Worker Safety

During construction, Strauss paid particular attention to worker safety. It was assumed in bridge building that a worker would die for every million dollars' worth of construction. A special net was put in place and it saved 19 men who fell at various times. The safety record was excellent until near the end of the project.

The safety record suffered in 1936 when a falling beam crushed an iron worker. Unfortunately, another tragic incident, in February 1937, took 10 lives when a scaffolding with workers collapsed. The weight of the scaffolding tore through the net, carrying the workers to their deaths below.

Over the years the bridge has set some remarkable and gruesome records. More than 100,000 cars a day cross it, joining San Francisco to Marin County and the Redwood Country to the north.

By February 1986 the billionth car had driven across. More than 1,200 people have jumped purposefully to their deaths from the span. (The precise figure is no longer given out to the media so as to reduce sensational publicity and preclude copycat actions by the mentally disturbed.)

Getting There

The Golden Gate Bridge is at the northernmost tip of San Francisco, accessible by car, taxi, or bus. If driving, take the Highway 101 approach to the Bridge and turn off at the last northbound San Francisco exit, which is clearly marked. The exit will take you to the observation area.

Be Sure to See

Park your car at the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge. Spend some time enjoying the landscape and waterscape unfolding in front of you. Then walk or bicycle onto the bridge and enjoy the cityscape of San Francisco, the fresh air, and the sense of grandeur that the Bridge inspires.

A walk out on the Golden Gate Bridge can be as memorable as your first view of Yosemite's El Capitan. There is also a vista turnout at the north end of the bridge that provides an inspiring view of the San Francisco skyline.

Views of the Golden Gate from a distance are a treat. Baker Beach west of the Bridge, Crissy Field east of the Bridge, and the turnouts on Conzelman Road as you climb the hill in Marin on the north side of the Bridge are three choice locations.

Best Time of Year

Except for periods of summer fog, which can obscure the Bridge and surrounding scenery for days, there is no bad season for seeing the Golden Gate Bridge.

Somber fog or brilliant sunlight both suit the structure and may fit the varying moods of the observer. Spring and autumn present the classic blue-sky days that avid bridge watchers savor.

Lodging

A fitting place to stay, which thoroughly captures the essence of the Bridge, is the Cavallo Point Lodge. The 142-room hotel, located at historic and recycled Fort Baker in a quiet cove beneath the north end of the Bridge, presents views with a room.

The hotel offers dining and recreational opportunities. Details at http://www.cavallopoint.com/.

Dining

Murray Circle is the fine-dining option at Cavallo Point. Dine on site to enjoy the full details of the setting. The emphasis is on Northern California cuisine, strong on Marin and Sonoma farm contributions, with both fresh ingredients and the nearby stunning view of the Golden Gate.

For Further Information

The overall San Francisco information source for visitors is San Francisco Travel. Details at https://www.sftravel.com/.

2.

San Francisco's Cable Cars:

Ride the Cars,

Visit the Museum

The Cable Car turnaround on Powell Street in San Francisco.

The simple joy of a Cable Car ride in San Francisco is something every visitor should consider.

In Brief

No other American city evokes