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Since Ralph Waldo Emerson’s time, East-coast dwellers have made the trip west to tour the areas that the author and his wife, two California residents, visited in August 2017. What could any tourist want more than to spend two weeks viewing Yosemite domes photographed by Ansel Adams, famous rivers encountered by Conestoga wagons, the basalt formations of Oregon’s coastline, California’s stately Redwoods, or the town of Eureka where the first nuggets launched gold-fevered Americans westward?
The planned trip was to travel, accompanied by their dog Francine, from the author’s Newport Beach home in southern California northeast toward the Sierra Nevada Mountains on California’s border, then up through Yosemite on the Tioga Road. The crossing into Nevada near Reno changed the subsequent route to Oregon’s state line. Driving past Mt Hood, they stopped in Portland to visit their daughter. The return leg of the journey was southerly along Oregon’s rugged coastline to California. They stopped at Eureka and the National Redwood Park. After traveling south through wine country and enjoying San Francisco, they pushed straight for home.
Publishing in book format is a high-tech solution for recording trips the author capitalizes on. In the 1960s, people documented their vacations using a notepad with cartons of slides or drugstore camera prints. Their trip was often recounted to less than excited friends. Instead, Anderson’s readers will be drawn in by photographs that are sharp, crisp, and well-composed. The photographic opportunities on both legs of this trip were slightly hampered by fires and smoke, especially on the Oregon coast. Regardless, with 77 excellent photo shots that accompany the written tale of the author’s two-week adventure, the book delivers on the promise of mountain and ocean meadows.