Tag: Highway 101

  • Greetings from the Best Coast

    Greetings from the Best Coast

    Greetings from the [Quarantined] Coast! Hoping this finds you safe and well, and staying home to help “flatten the curve” of the virus that is suddenly everywhere at once. Here in Washington we’re sheltering in place—and as fate would have it, today I am celebrating (from home) the release date of my newest book! Greetings…

  • Today’s the day!

    Today’s the day!

    Today is the “book birthday” of The Best Coast: A Road Trip Atlas! After nearly three years of work and a solid decade of research, I can’t believe this day is here. I am so excited to share this labor of love with you, and I hope you’ll love it, too. With 99 hand-drawn maps,…

  • Beachcomber’s sketchbook

    Beachcomber’s sketchbook

    Just over a year ago, the Tailor and I met a couple of good friends for a long weekend on the Oregon Coast. Our friends live in San Francisco, so Lincoln City was almost exactly the midpoint between us. And besides, we had an ulterior motive: we wanted to search the beaches for hidden treasure.…

  • The Best Coast

    The Best Coast

    While I’ve hinted at this several times on social media, and even shown some snippets of my process along the way, mostly I’ve been sitting on my hands lately, trying my best to keep mum while I wait for time to tick by. And now the waiting is almost over, and it’s time for the…

  • The long detour

    The long detour

    I spent nearly all of April breaking in my new car with a 6500-mile road trip up and down the West Coast. I’ve done many similar trips in the past, but this one had a completely different feel to it. And that’s because the severe drought—which for more than seven years had parched California and…

  • Jurassic forest

    Jurassic forest

    Speaking of incongruous dinosaurs, if you ever find yourself traveling up Highway 101 along the Oregon coast, you might be surprised to see a brachiosaurus head poking up through the trees. Just like the Columbia River Gorge, the Oregon rainforest isn’t a place you’ll ever find actual dinosaur fossils. Still, there’s something about the misty…

  • Phantom cone

    Phantom cone

    Sometimes, the local ice cream feels like the stuff of legends. And sometimes, it’s merely a ghost. Here in Ukiah, all that’s left is a flaking sign and the whisper of a name.

  • Take the leap

    Take the leap

    I was really hoping I might have had a sketch of a neon leaping frog (or something similar) for today’s post, but no such luck. Still, a leaping trout ain’t too shabby. Hope your extra day shines like a neon beacon…happy leap year!

  • Absolutely crabulous

    Absolutely crabulous

    Even though we don’t exactly have a lobster industry here on the West Coast, we have our fair share of tasty crustaceans—and some extra-yummy signage to go with them.

  • If these walls could talk

    If these walls could talk

    This is the fifteenth installment of my Mission Mondays series, exploring all 21 Spanish Missions along the California coast. You can read more about this series, and see a sketch map of all the missions, at this post. San Juan Bautista was the first mission I ever visited, more than two years ago now. It’s…