Winging It
A very fancy sort of Victorian birdhouse causes a flap in Carmel Valley.
When the once-rollicking housing market suddenly collapsed, and took with it the livelihoods of many of its talented contractors and builders, many craftsmen sat frustrated by their sudden wealth of free time and corresponding dearth ...
The winning entry from Steinbeck Festival’s Travels With Charley essay contest.
Beardog heard it first, as always. I was lost in a dream, chasing a fleeting strip of bacon through a swaying sea of corn silk. Good Bear and his own golden ears picked up on ...
You’re History
Inside the new Pebble Beach: The Official Golf History by Neal Hotelling.
In the years since a plucky Bostonian named Mike Brady first fought his way through irregular, construction zone course conditions to win the unofficial Opening Day Tournament in April, 1918, Pebble Beach has hosted over ...
Always Greener
Foreclosure and drought spawn a strange local business: lawn painting.
On the corner lot of a once-pleasant, palm-studded neighborhood in East Salinas, an ash-colored tabby steps furtively across a dead and prickly lawn. Crouched low, triggered to pounce, he advances across a minefield of rotten ...
Nice Pitch
A ground-breaking Carmel woman shares prank-laden stories from L.A. Dodgers locker room.
She was a wide-eyed witness to history, a charmed pioneer working in the male-dominated arena of professional sports, a regular foil to some of baseball’s largest stars. And now, 50 years after Carmel’s Flo Thomasian ...
Pop Appeal
The Pacific Grove saga of Sparky’s Root Beer renaissance.
It started out as a refreshing experiment, conceived in the mind of a constant tinkerer and brewed in a backyard kettle. Once formulated, the elixir found a dedicated local customer base the old-fashioned way – ...
Game of Life
Strange but true real-world dramas play out on local football fields.
A young star is slowed – not by an opponent, but a gun shot. A team decimated by injury forfeits a game because JV players refuse to move up; a year later, those players round ...
The Unknown Legend of Captain Lingcod
The teacher-surfer-boater’s tale bounces from Carmel Valley to Big Sur.
The surf coach picks his way through the boulder field with surety. Carrying his custom-painted surf gun under his arm, his remarkably intact 59-year-old body visibly unclenches itself from the paralytic effects of the ice-water ...
Big Peace
Mill Creek Redwood Preserve Trail taps the serenity of Palo Colorado Canyon.
To stroll along the softly contoured Mill Creek Redwood Preserve trail, which begins near Bottchers Gap at the end of the rugged, ragged Palo Colorado Canyon near Big Sur, is to gift oneself with a ...
Lord of the Things
Goth Toph mixes art with other pursuits.
In the old stone-frameddining cavetucked into the back of the Sardine Factory, Lord Toph snacks on battered squid and red wine. A candelabra flickers dim light at the end of the long table. Off in ...
Getting Warmer
Beach fires are a great way to blow off steam in an ever-cooling economic climate.
There were once days when the news was just the news. It was bad normally, rife with woe typically, yet somehow bearable, tempered by experience and the notion that things swing back around eventually. Then ...
Eagle Scouting
Lake San Antonio tours give visitors an inspiring look at the iconic bird.
If Benjamin Franklin had gotten his way back in 1784– when he fired off a resolute dispatch from his diplomatic post in France to his daughter Sally back in Philly, complaining vociferously against the choice ...
Way More Game
Water City Roller Hockey brings a roster of new sports to its Marina venue.
For the sleepless, disillusioned droves of would-be entrepreneurs who fear that the American Dream has morphed into some sort of bleak Kafkaesque corporate nightmare, affirmation can be found holding a hockey stick on an abandoned ...
In the Loop
Understanding the all-too underappreciated art form called caddying.
They serve as historians, tour guides and confidantes, and sometimes, in the case of high-value clients, security. Here, near-perfect landscapes of rolling sage dunes rise from rock studded beaches, hills of twisted Cypress and stands ...
Cold Truth
Pinnacles National Monument is a different – and in many ways better – experience in winter.
Freedom is just a tank of gas away. Incredibly, the cost to fund your adventurous spirit is downright affordable once again. Big Sur is a treasure, of course. But try to find the solitude that ...
A Second Life Sentence
Going inside Gitmo with Pacific Grove virtual reporter Bernhard Drax.
Draxtor Despres is on his beat. Trusty microphone in hand, omnipresent headphones tamping down his shock of pitch-black porcupine hair, he moves effortlessly through a hip, post-modern furniture store called Corn, stopping briefly to ask ...
Range of Talents
Point Lobos State Park icon Chuck Bancroft’s multi-faceted skill set is a natural wonder itself.
After nearly 30 years patrolling in one of the most ecologically diverse, spectacularly scenic areas known to man, Ranger Chuck Bancroft is as much a part of Point Lobos State Reserve as its watchful Cypress ...
Taking Wing
Lone local qualifier Hawk Mazzotta braved bulls and fast black top to prepare for the AMA races at Laguna Seca.
Hawk Mazzotta was raised up on a 5,000-acre cattle ranch near Whitmore, Calif., east of Redding. His father was, among many other things, a falconer, and named his second son after the raptors that he ...
