1,000 Places to See in the U.S.A. & Canada Before You Die (89 page)

Called Deer Creek Dry Diggins when it was just a mining camp, Nevada City is perhaps the most interesting of the Mother Lode towns, with a compact downtown that looks like a timeworn set from a Wild West movie. Gaslights made from original 1800s molds light up Broad Street, where the historic Nevada Theatre and charming Emma Nevada House are located. Built in 1856 as the childhood home of opera star Emma Nevada, the six-room inn won awards in 1990 for its painstaking restoration.

Near the top of California’s Central Valley, Sacramento, the state capital, was once the terminus for the Pony Express (see p. 457). Don’t miss the domed state capitol building; the California Railroad Museum, which displays 21 restored locomotives; and the scenic riverside district of Old Sacramento. The Discovery Museum offers an intense look at the Gold Rush and how it shaped the early days of the state. For lodging that fits the time, stay on the
Delta King,
a 1928 paddleboat transformed into a permanently moored hotel in Old Sacramento.

W
HERE
: Gold Country runs along State Hwy. 49, roughly 140 miles east of San Francisco.
Nevada City visitor info:
Tel 530-265-2692;
www.nevadacitychamber.com
.
M
ARSHALL
G
OLD
D
ISCOVERY
S
TATE
P
ARK
: Coloma. Tel 530-622-3470;
www.parks.ca.gov
.
E
MMA
N
EVADA
H
OUSE
: Nevada City. Tel 800-916-3662 or 530-265-4415;
www.emmanevadahouse.com
.
Cost:
from $179 (off peak), from $196 (peak).
R
AILROAD
M
USEUM
: Sacramento. Tel 916-445-6645;
www.csrmf.org
.
D
ISCOVERY
M
USEUM
: Sacramento. Tel 916-264-7057;
www.thediscovery.org
.
When:
closed Mon.
T
HE
D
ELTA
K
ING
: Sacramento. Tel 800-825-5464 or 916-444-5464;
www.deltaking.com
.
Cost:
from $149 (off peak), from $179 (peak).
B
EST TIMES
: early Jan for Nevada City’s Wild & Scenic Film Festival (
www.wildandscenicfilmfestival.org
); July 4 weekend for Mark Twain Days; mid-Aug–early Sept for the California State Fair in Sacramento (
www.bigfun.com
).

Art Galore and Natural Splendor

California

The tree-lined streets of the pretty, prosperous, and pampered town of Carmel-by-the-Sea are filled with art galleries (100 and counting), gift shops, and cafés next to a crescent of beautiful, white sandy beach. With its rounded
tower and Moorish accents, the 1771 Carmel Mission is one of the state’s most beautiful and served as the headquarters for the entire mission system in California (see p. 807).

This seaside village is still one of the world’s loveliest collaborations between man and nature, where groves of live oaks, pines, and Monterey cypress meet the fine white sand of the beach. Its magical natural light inspired artists and writers to flock here from the turn of the 20th century, and many of its 4,300 residents are still professional artists (though millionaires and second-home owners made inroads long ago). The village’s ongoing beauty is due in part to the foresight of city officials who, in 1929, passed an ordinance declaring Carmel to be “a residential city,” thus keeping business and commerce in check. Strict zoning means: no house numbers, no traffic lights, no neon signs, no billboards, and no parking meters.

Carmel-by-the-Sea boasts a gorgeous coastal location along with an abundance of cultural and shopping venues.

Its most famous resident, Clint Eastwood, fell in love with the area in the 1950s and now lives in nearby Carmel Valley. Elected mayor in 1986, Eastwood is still a major presence in town: He owns downtown’s most popular pub, the Hog’s Breath Inn (try the Dirty Harry Burger) and the historic Mission Ranch Inn, a former seaside dairy farm just outside town. The inn has old-fashioned accommodations within an 1850s farmhouse, converted bunkhouse, barn, and cottages, and the old creamery is now a lively steakhouse and lounge.

For sheer luxury, nearby Bernardus Lodge is a lushly landscaped romantic retreat, complete with its own small vineyard and spa (featuring wine-inspired treatments like body scrubs using crushed grapeseeds). Its rooms are huge and luxuriously appointed and its fine-dining restaurant, Marinus, serves some of the best food in Northern California.

W
HERE
: 120 miles south of San Francisco.
Visitor info:
Tel 831-624-2522;
www.carmelcalifornia.com
.
C
ARMEL
M
ISSION
: Tel 831-624-1271;
www.carmelmission.org
.
H
OG’S
B
REATH
I
NN
: Tel 831-625-1044;
www.hogsbreathinn.net
.
Cost:
lunch $15.
M
ISSION
R
ANCH
I
NN
: Tel 800-538-8221 or 831-624-6436;
www.missionranchcarmel.com
.
Cost:
from $110.
B
ERNARDUS
L
ODGE
: Carmel Valley. Tel 888-648-9463 or 831-658-3550;
www.bernardus.com
.
Cost:
from $275 (off-peak), from $525 (peak); dinner $55.
B
EST TIMES
: mid-May for Carmel Art Festival (
www.carmelartfestival.org
); mid-July–early Aug for Carmel Bach Festival (
www.bachfestival.org
).

As Low as You Can Go

California

Located in the northern reaches of the Mojave Desert, Death Valley National Park enjoys the dubious distinction of being the lowest, driest, and hottest spot in America, with scorching summers that can reach
125°F—and in 1913 topped out at 134°F. Its fearsome name draws folks from all over the world. What strikes them is not just the area’s brutality but its spectacular and varied beauty, with Parched Deadman Pass and Dry Bone Canyon standing in contrast to the dramatic hills and mountains, such as 11,000-foot Telescope Peak. Under the desert sun, hundreds of species of plant and animal life are indigenous to this desiccated land (with just 2 inches of rain a year), with 40 species found nowhere else on earth.

Death Valley is actually not a valley at all, but a plate of crusty salt flats that has been steadily dropping between two mountain ranges that are slowly rising and sliding apart. Within the long, narrow park confines (140 miles from one end to the other, about the size of Connecticut), one of the most popular sights is Artists Palette, where mineral deposits have caused swaths of red, pink, orange, purple, and green to color the hills. Others are Zabriskie Point, with its views of wrinkled hills and perfectly sculpted Sahara-like sand dunes. Find the dead-end road that leads to the mile-high (and aptly named) Dante’s View, from which you can see 360 degrees for 100 miles, taking in both the highest and lowest points in the Lower 48: Mount Whitney, at 14,491 feet, and Badwater, at 282 feet below sea level.

Two rocks and the mysterious trails they left on Racetrack Playa.

The park’s most peculiar happenings take place on the flat dry lakebed of Racetrack Playa, where boulders weighing as much as 700 pounds sometimes move hundreds of yards at night, leaving trails in the sand as testimony. No one has ever seen them move, and scientists are at a loss to explain it.

Air-conditioned cars and luxury inns have improved on the experience that led 19th-century pioneers to give the valley its name. The 1927 stone and adobe Mission-style Furnace Creek Inn is a veritable oasis of natural springs and palm gardens, with an 18-hole golf course thrown into the bargain. Take a nighttime dip in the pool, and gaze up at the desert sky filled with a sea of stars.

Farther south is Joshua Tree National Park, 800,000 acres of high desert whose most prominent feature is the distinctive and ubiquitous Joshua tree, festooned with creamy white blossoms in the spring. (Mormon pioneers believed the limbs of the trees resembled the upraised arms of Joshua leading them to the promised land.) Joshua Tree is one of the most popular rock-climbing areas in the country, with more than 4,500 established routes, ranging from friendly bouldering to immensely challenging cliffs. Desert Hot Springs, named for its wealth of natural hot springs, has many resorts but only at Two Bunch Palms (legend has it) did Al Capone
come to soothe his nerves. Sink into the unusually pure mineral water that comes out of the earth at 148°F but is cooled for two different tubs in the palm-shaded grotto, one a soothing 98°, the other still toasty at 104°.

W
HERE
: 120 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Visitor info:
Tel 760-786-3200;
www.nps.gov/deva
.
F
URNACE
C
REEK
I
NN
: Tel 760-786-2345;
www.furnacecreekresort.com
.
Cost:
from $250 (off-peak), from $265 (peak).
J
OSHUA
T
REE
N
ATIONAL
P
ARK
: Tel 760-367-5500;
www.nps.gov/jotr
.
T
WO
B
UNCH
P
ALMS
: Desert Hot Springs. Tel 760-329-8791;
www.twobunchpalms.com
.
Cost:
from $115 (off-peak), from $195 (peak).
B
EST TIMES
: Oct–May for weather; early spring for wildflowers; dawn and late afternoon for the visual power and play of light.

Alternative Big Sur and a Southern Cousin

California

Most of the movements in America considered either enlightened or loopy (from yoga to meditation to crystals) were pioneered in California—and nowhere more than in the mountains, canyons, and seaside retreats of
Big Sur (see p. 836). Ground zero for these cultural changes is Esalen Institute, a 27-acre healing retreat synonymous with New Age consciousness, Eastern mysticism, and self-awareness since it was founded in 1962 as part of the human potential movement, a response to the repressive 1950s. Aldous Huxley, British author of the science-fiction classic
Brave New World,
was an early teacher here, along with author Carlos Castaneda (
The Teachings of Don Juan
) and folksinger Joan Baez. Its sulfur-rich natural hot springs, which circulate into hot tubs built into the cliffs so near the ocean you can watch whales spouting, have been drawing people (including the now-extinct tribe of Esselen Indians) for centuries. (These days, nudity is the norm.)

More than 10,000 people come each year to Esalen’s pristine oceanfront setting to transform themselves through hundreds of workshops in meditation, massage, yoga, psychology, ecology, spirituality, art, and music. Esalen’s famous oceanfront massages are set in a large outdoor treatment room with ocean views and open-air ceilings that lets the roar drift in and over your body.

If Esalen keeps you busy with workshops, the greatest attraction of the nearby Tassajara Zen Mountain Center is doing nothing. Located deep in a canyon at the end of a formidable 14-mile road, Tassajara was founded in 1969, the first Buddhist monastery outside Asia. The guest cabins have no phones or electricity (kerosene lamps provide light), no hot water, and no showers or tubs. (All bathing is done in the sex-segregated communal Japanese-style baths fed by sulfur hot springs.) Join black-robed monks for 5:45
A.M.
sitting meditation (called
zazen
) or sleep in—it’s your call.