SACRAMENTO, Calif.-
From Spanish missions and county museums to Alcatraz, the Steinbeck center and the Getty, California is a tourist’s treasure trove of cultural sites.
A new book, “Best of California’s Missions, Mansions and Museums: A Behind-the-Scenes Guide to the Golden State’s Historic and Cultural Treasures” by Ken and Dahlynn McKowen (Wilderness Press, $21.95), profiles 135 of these institutions.
The book is organized geographically, with chapters on the North Coast, Shasta Cascade, San Francisco area, the Great Valley, Gold Country and High Sierra, Central Coast, Los Angeles County, and South Coast and Desert.
Entries include descriptions of each site’s collection, its history and context, as well as listings of tours tailored to different types of travelers – families, couples and those with special interests.
Each institution profiled is also listed with a “Don’t miss this” tidbit. For the Samoa Cookhouse Museum, in Samoa, Calif., near Eureka, it’s “the food!” – including basic but hearty, old-fashioned offerings like ham, eggs, pancakes, rolls, gravy, bacon and toast, and that’s just for breakfast. The cookhouse is the last remaining logging company cookhouse in the West, built in 1895, but today it serves the general public, not the loggers.
