Unaccompanied Minor = Legalized Theft

My 13-year-old son travels to see me two weekends a month. All U.S. airlines will accept unaccompanied minors—that is, children traveling alone—starting at the age of 5. However, the rules and fees keep changing to parents’ detriment.

It used to be that children 12 and over could travel on most airlines “as adults,” without payment of a fee. You would normally be charged $50 each way for children under 12, though JetBlue, the airline we used most often, charged nothing extra. A few years ago, JetBlue started charging $25 each way; then, they raised it to $50, and later to $75.

I couldn’t wait for my son to turn 12. Just as he did, they raised the cutoff age to 13. And just as he turned 13, they raised it to 14. Many airlines have now raised the cutoff age to 15, and some are charging as much as $100 each way, which practically doubles the cost of the ticket.

You might have understood the change if it had happened after 9/11, but for several years after that the normal cutoff age remained at 12. I have to think that the airlines are changing because they need the money, not out of any newly-discovered concern for children’s safety.

Now, I don’t really mind when airlines charge extra for things that actually have value. It may be inconvenient that the second suitcase that used to travel free, now entails an excess baggage fee. And it may seem nitpicky that many airlines now charge for meals and snacks that used to be free. But food and luggage really do cost money. The costs may be egregious in relation to what you get, but at least there’s a connection.

But the airlines don’t do anything for unaccompanied minors traveling on nonstop flights. Basically, they provide an escort up and down the jetway—which they also do for wheelchair passengers, without charging extra—and that’s it. They don’t have any extra staff at the gate or on the plane. The don’t do anything to earn their fee.

As I paid Delta airlines $100 one-way for my frequent-flying son to be walked down the jetway, there was one word that came to mind: Theft. The airlines have now been reduced to stealing from their customers. How sad.

Le Gavroche

For the second major meal of our London trip, we chose the two-star Le Gavroche. This restaurant opened in 1967 in Sloane Street, moving in 1981 to its current quarters in Upper Brook Street, just steps away from Hyde Park, where it earned its third Michelin star, the first U.K. restaurant to be so honored.

The founding chef, Michel Roux, left to take over The Waterside Inn in Bray, which I reviewed two years ago. His son, Michel Roux Jr., took over as chef de cuisine. Michelin docked a star, leaving Le Gavroche with two. The Waterside Inn is the prettier location, but we found the cuisine here more impressive. This was probably our best meal since the late lamented Alain Ducasse at the Essex House.

The restaurant is on the lower level of an elegant Georgian townhouse, with a hotel occupying the upper levels. The Roux family once owned the hotel too, but it is now independent. The dining room walls are deep green, the banquettes plush. Ducks and roosters dominate the décor, along with orchids.

The restaurant is named for the little urchin in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. That little figure appears everywhere at Le Gavroche, including the handles of all the flatware, many of the serving pieces, the door to the kitchen, and probably other places I failed to notice.

Prices can only be described as staggering. The Menu Exceptionnel (a long tasting menu) was £95 (around $190) per person. I didn’t take note of individual prices, except to note that many entrées were upwards of $70 or $80 apiece (and some more than that), with many appetizers in the $40 to $60 range. As we noted the night before, in relation to what we were already bound to spend anyway, the tasting menu seemed to be a bargain. so we chose that once again.

Once again, we avoided ordering until we had settled on a wine. And once again, the staff acted as if this was an unusual procedure, though we didn’t get the snooty reaction we had at Hibiscus. Here the choice was more difficult, as the wine list is a large volume. I noted that the largest section was the French Bordeaux, so I asked the sommelier for a Bordeaux under £60. You can imagine my surprise when he recommended a 1997 St. Julien at just £48. He decanted it with much ceremony, holding a candle up to the bottle to check for sediment. (In the U.S., Bern’s Steakhouse is the only restaurant where I have observed that procedure.)

I apologize in advance for the poor quality of the photos. The ambient lighting here was low, and we didn’t feel it was appropriate to use the flash. It went off once by accident; it will probably be pretty obvious which photo that was.

 

The canapés (above left) were smoked duck and foie gras. I liked the duck a bit better, but they were both excellent. The bread service offered two contrasting butters (salted, not) and multiple breads, but none of them were memorable. We then moved on to our eight-course menu, a copy of which was on the table, a method I like much better than long explanations delivered at the table.

1) Lobster Salad with Mango, Avocado, Basil and Lime (above right), stuffed in an endive leaf.

 

2) Langoustine and Snails (above left) in a light Hollandaise sauce, flavored with Basque pepper and parsley. As Michelle noted, though the menu did not, there was about half a pound of butter in this dish. It was intensely creamy, but the combination worked beautifully.

3) Seared Sea Bass (above right) on a soft polenta, roast pepper coulis, olive and garlic croutons. Michelle called it “one of the prettiest fish presentations I’ve seen,” and “just amazing.” The intense olive and pepper taste worked well with the perfectly prepared fish.

 

4) Hot Foie Gras and Crispy Pancake of Duck (above left) flavored with cinnamon. This was perhaps the best foie gras dish ever: amazing. The seared foie reduced to liquid almost instantly, but it seemed neither fatty nor heavy. It was a fairly large serving, too. The duck pancake was the pancake I want for breakfast every day.

5) Roasted Rack of Welsh Lamb (above right), courgette flower fritter and tarragon jus. The rack of lamb was carved and plated tableside. It was soft as butter, and the deep-fried squash blossom also perfect.

  

6) Next came the cheese course. There was a large selection, from which we each chose five, and portions were generous. I didn’t note the individual cheeses, but we wanted sharp, intense-tasting ones, and we got them.

 

7) Ouefs à la Neige, or Soft Caramel-covered Meringue, Vanilla Cream and Poached Strawberries (above left). The flavors were intense and clear.

8) Bitter Chocolate and Coffee-Layered Sponge Cake and Chocolate Sorbet (above right). I’m not a chocolate guy, but Michelle pronounced it a success. I liked the coffee flavor. (Sorry for the awful photo.)

 

One of the petits-fours plates is shown above; there were others, but the photo isn’t presentable.

The restaurant was about 85% full on a Saturday in mid-August, and we were gratified to find that the average age of the clientele seemed to be under 45. The New York media repeatedly inform us that “young people” aren’t interested in composed formal meals of the kind Le Gavroche offers. Whether it’s even true in New York is debatable, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be true in London.

Service was superb; I can’t really find any fault with it. Nor with the food, which was at the highest level we’ve experienced.

Le Gavroche (43 Upper Brook Street, London)

Food: ****
Service: ****
Ambiance: ****
Overall: ****

Hibiscus

 

On a recent trip to London, my girlfriend and I wanted to try a couple of Michelin-starred restaurants. Full disclosure is due: both of our first choices were fully booked, but we landed on two very good alternatives, starting with Hibiscus. The chef, Claude Bosi, was born in Lyon and trained in France, but his cuisine relies heavily on locally-sourced ingredients. If you’d told me he was English, I would have believed it.

The restaurant opened in Shropshire in 2000, winning a Michelin star in 2001 and a second star in 2004. Eager to play on the big stage, he moved the restaurant to London in 2007, and the Michelin folks knocked him back down to one star. The menu is £60 for a three-course prix-fixe or £75 for the nine-course tasting menu. We thought that £15 was a modest premium to pay for a much broader sample of Chef Bosi’s cuisine, so we went with that.

  

We began with a bowl of warm, slightly salty gougères. The bread didn’t especially impress me, but we loved the soft Welsh cow’s-milk butter. It had an unusually high fat content, which imparted a yellow color, and was also a bit more salty than most butters.

 

1) The amuse-bouche was a Chilled Cucumber & Pineapple Soda (above left) with smoked olive oil and black pepper. This was very clever dish, slightly chunky, but with the consistency of soda.

2) Ravioli of Spring Onion & Cinnamon (above right) with meadowsweet flower, roast onion, and Granny Smith apple. This was a delicate dish, in which the ingredients worked perfectly together. The roasted onions were formed into little pellets that seemed solid, but melted instantly at the touch.

 

3) Tartare of Line-caught Cornish Mackerel (above left) with English strawberries & celery, wasabi & honey dressing. There was a lot on the plate, but this dish was extremely mild, and could almost have used a bit more punch. I couldn’t really detect much of the wasabi.

4) Roast Cornish Lobster cooked in Brown Butter (above right) with green bean and lemongrass purée, Cavaillon melon. This had the “oomph” that the previous dish lacked. Michelle’s comment was, “This was really very nice.”

 

5) Roast Monkfish (above left), Mona Lisa gnocchi, summer truffle, sage & onion purée, mead sauce. This had a nice savory, healthy flavor.

6) Lightly Oak-smoked Lamb Sweetbreads (above right) with fresh goat cheese, tamarillow powder, and lettuce veloute. The sweetbreads had a terrific smokey flavor, and everything on the plate worked well together. To me, this was the most remarkable dish of the evening.

 

7) Roast Goosnargh Duck (above left), cherries scented with lapsang Souchong, barbecued almond butter, and cauliflower four ways (purple cauliflower couscous, white cauliflower purée, and roasted cauliflower × 2). The duck was flavorful but a little too tough.

8) SweetTomato Skin (above right) with vanilla & frozen raspberries, held together with gelatin. Michelle said, “It’s so light, it’s like eating a cloud.” The tomato taste was in the background, while the raspberries were wonderful. 

 

9 ) English Pea & American Mint Tart (above left), sheep’s milk whey & coconut sorbet. Michelle called this “the oddest thing I’ve ever tasted,” and “very strange.” I found it bizarre. That didn’t stop us from finishing the whole thing, but we felt that a tart made of peas misfired. At the end of a long meal, one wants a real dessert, not an appetizer masquerading as dessert.

The petits-fours (above right) were just fine.

Service was generally good, with many sauces applied at table-side, but some dishes weren’t cleared quite as promptly as they should be, and the staff were occasionally frazzled. We had trouble understanding the explanations of quite a few of the dishes. We got a printed menu at the end, but it would have been a lot easier had this been left on the table.

The server seemed offended when I said I wanted to make a wine selection before we ordered. I don’t know if our habits are unusual, but I’ve found that if you don’t choose the wine before placing the food order, you’re liable to be eating the first couple of courses with only water to drink. I haven’t noted the bottle we chose, except that we paid £43 for it (a reasonable price by London standards). The list was not an especially long one. After I narrowed down the choice to two bottles, the sommelier made a very good recommendation and decanted the wine without being asked to do so.

We were gratified to note that the restaurant was full in mid-August, with a mixed demographic of young people and jeans, old folks in suits, and everything in between. The clientele did not seem to be tourists. The tables are not overly cramped, but the noise level was on the loud side after the space filled up. The décor is a mediation on taupe and pine, but bright orange charger plates (pictured at the top of this post) give the room a dash of color.

Chef Bosi dares to challenge his audience on occasion. There were a couple of misfires, but on the whole this was a happy experience.

Hibiscus (29 Maddox Street, London)

Food: **½
Service: **½
Ambiance: **½
Overall: **½

Bern's Steakhouse

 

The words “fine dining” and “Tampa, Florida” seldom occur in the same sentence. For a recent family celebration, only one restaurant came to mind: Bern’s Steakhouse. It is the one Tampa restaurant with an international reputation, founded largely on its 700,000-bottle wine cellar, believed to be the largest privately-held wine collection in the world.

That collection is so large that about 80% of it is not even stored at the restaurant, but in a warehouse across the street. The 212-page novel-length wine list is a massive tome, including bottles hundreds of years old. The list of wines available by the glass (around 150) is more than most restaurants offer by the bottle.

The restaurant, named for Bern Laxer, has been at this site since 1956. Laxer’s son, David, is now in charge.

The building, not originally a restaurant, is unimpressive from the outside. But once you get in, the rest of Bern’s is as overwhelming as its wine list. Its eight dining rooms, each with a different theme, seat up to 350. Our party of eight was in a room featuring enormous photographic mural of the Rhone valley.

Bern’s doesn’t do anything small. The menu goes on for eighteen pages, several of which are long essays explaining how—in the restaurant’s favorite phrase—“We do things differently here.” Want to start with caviar? There are twenty-one selections, priced from $20–220 per ounce. Want steak tartare? Bern’s offers it four different ways.

The steak portion of the menu goes on for four pages, because Bern’s can do nothing without lecturing you. There are fifty-one ordering options—a function of the cut of meat and the desired thickness—priced anywhere from $29.10 for a six-ounce filet mignon, to $233.12 a sixty-ounce strip sirloin that feeds six. You’d think they could round the cents on a $233 steak.

Bern’s serves USDA prime beef, aged 5–8 weeks. They are aggressive about trimming fat and bone before cooking, so their eight-ounce steak has more edible content than it would at other steakhouses. The menu claims that they buy about 3–4 pounds of beef for every pound they serve.

Most of the steaks are around $35–40 per person, but Bern’s doesn’t follow the typical steakhouse à la carte model. Every entrée also includes French onion soup, a house salad, a baked potato, onion rings, and vegetables. Dinner for six adults and two children was $419 before tax and tip, and that figure included the wine—more on that below—and cocktails. The same dinner in New York would cost at least double that.

  

As I studied the wine list, I could hardly contain myself as I saw one bargain after another. I settled on a magnum of 1967 Julien Devèze Châteauneuf-du-Pape, which was around $140. The sommelier tried to upsell me to a bottle that was $100 more, but after I declined, he brought back the 1971, which he insisted was better, and at $126 was less expensive than the bottle I’d asked for.

To put that in perspective, at the New York wine-themed restaurant Veritas, the cheapest magnum of Châteauneuf-du-Pape costs $175, and it’s a 1999, twenty-eight years younger than the one we had. Veritas has only a handful of choices older than 1990, and only one older than 1980, whereas Bern’s has a long list of bottles going back to at least the 1960s.

The wine was superb, though I don’t have much to compare it to. In New York, a bottle that old, if you could find it, would cost the equivalent of a monthly mortgage payment.

 

Everyone loved the French onion soup (above left), but a plate of “cheese toast” (above right)—basically melted cheese on saltine crackers—wasn’t much good at all.

 

The house salad (above left) was just fine, while my son ordered the caesar salad (above right) for $9.95 extra, which our waiter prepared tableside, in a multi-step process that seemed to take fifteen minutes.

My girlfriend and I shared the 16 oz. Delmonico ($69.34), which the restaurant recommends as a portion for two. It doesn’t look that big, but we filled up quickly, given all of the other food included. The steak itself was just about perfect, with a nice exterior char, marbling, and the nutty, tangy flavor that comes from long aging.

Vegetables were a mixed bag. The onion rings were stringy and greasy, and the other vegetables on the plate were rather dull, but the baked potato was wonderful. Most restaurants would leave it to each guest to apply the fixin’s, but our waiter split each potato at tableside and applied sour cream, bacon, and chives according to each diner’s preference.

Service in the main dining room was excellent. All of Bern’s waiters train for a full year before they’re permitted to serve customers on their own. Garnishes and sauces are all applied tableside, and the waiter himself serves and clears every dish.

 

Be sure to ask for a kitchen and wine cellar tour, normally given between dinner and dessert. It takes about fifteen minutes, and is well worth it.

Dessert is such an unusual experience that you should order something even if you’re not hungry. It’s served upstairs in the Harry Waugh Dessert Room (named for a famous wine collector). It’s actually not a room, but a rabbit’s warren of many rooms: to be exact, forty-eight separate alcoves of varying sizes, each shaped like a wine cask, that can accommodate between two and twelve guests.

No one will be surprised that dessert here, like everything else, is over the top. The menu is four pages long, and has about 60 selections. It comes with yet another wine list, this one 42 pages long, with another 1,800 selections (armagnacs, cognacs, scotches, brandies, ports, etc.)

 
Left: Dulce de Leche Liquid Center Cake ($10.95); Right: Tiramisu ($9.95)

 
Left: Chocolate-Chocolate-Chocolate ($10.95); Right: Macadamia Nut Sundae ($10.00)

We were mildly disappointed with a Macadamia Nut Sundae, if only because its billing on the menu (“best sundae in the world”) would have been tough for any dessert to live up to. I don’t think anyone finished their desserts (how could they?) but there were vague nods of satisfaction around the table.

Service in the dessert room was nowhere near as polished as in the main dining room. The waiter’s recommendations weren’t quite as good as they were cracked up to be, and on two occasions it took a major hunting expedition to find him.

The overall dessert room bill, including drinks, was $75.60 before tax and tip.

*

After you get past the steaks, there is some unevenness at Bern’s. Any restaurant with such a long menu is bound to have some soft spots. But the overall experience is incomparable, and the wine list ranks with the great pyramids as one of the wonders of the world.

Bern’s Steakhouse (1208 South Howard Avenue, Tampa, Florida)

Food: ***
Wine & Spirits: ****
Service: ***
Ambiance: ***
Overall: ***

Montreal Journal: Marché de La Villette & Les Bouchées Gourmandes

Marché de La Villette

Rounding out our Montreal journal are two casual places along rue St. Paul Ouest where we had breakfast and lunch.

Marché de La Villette has only been in existence for about four years, but it has the look of a comfortable bistro that has been there forever. There’s a take-out counter featuring an array of salads, quiches and terrines, but there’s a full-service all-day menu too. We’ve been there several times, but only for breakfast/brunch. It’s not exactly a bargain, with breakfast for two coming to around CA$40, but you don’t leave hungry, and everything is prepared to a high standard.

 

Pictured are: Crèpe with ham and brie (upper left), Cheese platter (upper right), Omelette with salad (lower left), and your humble correspondent (lower right).

It’s a pity I didn’t have my camera the first day that we visited La Bouchées Gourmandes, which is just down the street from Marché de La Villette. It’s primarily a sweet shop, but there’s a breakfast and lunch menu too. The crèpes were outstanding — if anything, lighter, fluffier, and more textured than those at La Villette. We went back the next day for hot chocolate and a tart.

The place appears to be operated by a husband–wife team, with no one in the front-of-house except the wife. She moves at her own pace: that tart took her quite a while to produce, even though it was already in a display case and needed only to be plated.

But as long as you’re in no hurry, it is well worth a visit.

Marché de La Villette (324, rue St. Paul Ouest, Montreal)

Les Bouchées Gourmandes (310, rue St. Paul Ouest, Montreal)

Montreal Journal: Au Pied de Cochon

 

Although we would have but two evenings in Montreal, one restaurant from our last visit impressed us enough that we were determined to go again: Au Pied de Cochon, literally “The Pig’s Foot.”

Chef Martin Picard has a cult following that almost any chef would envy. I cannot find a single negative review of the place. Maybe it’s because Picard is bribing diners with the most fattening foods imaginable, and serving them in eye-popping combinations no one else would dream of.

I wrote a fairly detailed eGullet post the last time we visited, so  I won’t repeat the background. The only thing that’s new since then is that Martin Picard now has his own cookbook. Like everything else at Au Pied de Cochon, Picard did it his own way, and published the book himself.

And the restaurant is, if anything, even harder to get into. We booked our table a few weeks in advance, but all they could offer me on a Saturday evening was 6:00 p.m., and we had to vacate the table by 8:00. This didn’t deter us: for all of the restaurant’s charms, it is really not a place to linger. The space is cramped, loud, and not especially comfortable.

We had the same server as last time, and once again he advised that an appetizer to share would probably be ample, given the vast portion sizes. I didn’t take note of our wine selection, but the list seemed more expensive than last time. We settled on a respectable red for $65.

We started with the Plogue à Champlain ($23; above), a hunk of foie gras with a buckwheat pancake, bacon, onions, potatoes, and maple syrup. The server explained that a friend of Picard had served this to him at breakfast, and he was so thunderstruck that he added it to the restaurant’s menu. And it was good enough to make you think that God made foie gras and maple syrup to be eaten together every morning.

 
Pot-au-feu ($60) is one of the few dishes actually advertised as being a portion for two. It’s traditionally a fairly humble dish, but you can count on Picard to spruce it up with foie gras, prairie oysters, and Guinea Hen, along with typical ingredients like boiled beef, bone marrow, and vegetables. We thought that the beef and vegetables turned out especially well, while the Guinea Hen didn’t really repay the effort to pry off the bone what little meat was left.

When we visit Montreal, there’s always a feeling of “so many restaurants…so little time.” But with much of the menu at Au Pied de Chochon still unexplored, it will probably still be a must-visit the next time we come to Montreal.

Au Pied de Cochon (536, rue Duluth Est, Montreal)

Food: **
Service: *
Ambiance: *
Overall: **

Montreal Journal: La Chronique

 
Interior shot (left); Chefs Marc de Canck and Olivier de Montigny (right)

My girlfriend and I spent a fun long weekend in Montreal last year. We enjoyed it so much that she suggested a return visit to celebrate my birthday. The question was: where to eat? Last time, we had a terrific meal at Toqué, and we wanted another meal in that class. An eGullet contributor suggested La Chronique.

The restaurant, located well apart from the central business district, occupies a fairly humble-looking space that belies the ambitious food. Belgian chef Marc de Canck has been at the helm since it opened in March 1995, joined more recently by his assistant Olivier de Montigny. It has garnered a mention in various international publications, including a favorable write-up from New York Times critic Eric Asimov in 1999.

The à la carte menu offers appetizers from CA$15–25 and entrées $34–45; there are only about half-a-dozen of each. We chose the seven-course degustation for $100 per person, with wine pairings another $50 or $100 (we had the latter). The explanations of the wines were unusually detailed, extending at times to full-blown tasting notes à la Wine Spectator.

I present the menu selections and paired wines below in French, followed in each case by our notes: 

 

La mise en bouche en surprise du moment [above left]

La Lotte farcie de homard, crème de ptd et pois verts à la truffe [above right]
France, Saint-Aubin 1^er Cru Les Frionnes, Hubert Lamy 2004

The amuse-bouche was a small daub of gravlax with crème fraîche. The first appetizer was a fairly complex presentation of monkfish stuffed with lobster, with a potato foam, green peas, and purple basil. The lobster had a nice sweeness, balanced by peach and almond notes in the paired wine.

 

Bar de ligne rôti, ravioli d’artichauts et sa vinaigrette tiède aux tomates séchées [above left]
France, Sancerre, Les Culs De Beaujeu, François Cotat 2005

La noix de ris de veau aux cèpes, foie gras et courge musquée [above right]
Amerique, Santa Rita Hills, Foley Pinot noir, Foley Estate 2005

Next came artichoke ravioli with red peppers and dried tomatoes, accompanied by the very smooth François Cotat Sancerre, which offered hints of grapefruit, green tea, aged in oak. I’m no great fan of artichokes, but I could appreciate the artistry of the dish.

After that, sweetbreads and foie gras in a chocolate and butternut squash purée. If you put so many ideas into one dish, the result could very well be mush. Instead, our note at the time was: “This is incredible.” The accompanying pinot noir offered hints of cherry and vanilla.

 

Le duo de boeuf Angus, endive caramélisée et girolles [above left]
Italie, Bolgheri, Ornellaia, Tenuta san Giudo 2002

Le plateau de fromages fermiers d’ici et d’ailleurs [above right]
Italie, Monferrato Rosso, Pin, La Spinetta 2003

The last savory course was a filet of black angus beef, with a braised beef tail, braised endive, onion, and veal jus. This seemed less memorable than some of the other dishes. The accompanying Italian wine came with a tasting note that almost defied detection by mere mortals: black olives, leather, plum, blackcurrant, strawberry, and cherries.

The server brought around a cheese platter, from which we chose six, all of which were wonderful, including a couple of unpasteurized cheeses that could not legally be served in the U.S.. The tasting note for the wine: tobacco, coffee, chocolate, red fruits, and blackcurrant. 

La clafoutis aux pêches, caramel salé et glace vanille
France, Barsac-Sauternes 1^er Cru, Château Climens 1995

Dessert was a light pastry with peaches, salted caramel, and vanilla ice cream, along with a sauterne. Tasting note: pineapple, mango, fig, and honey.

Service throughout was first-rate, and the timing of the courses—always tricky with a tasting menu—was just about right. The food at La Chronique has a bit less of the “wow” factor than at Toqué, but it must surely be one of the top handful of dining experiences in Montreal.

La Chronique (99 rue Laurier Ouest, Montreal)

Food: ***
Service: **½
Ambiance: **
Overall: **½

Pacific Coast Highway Album: San Francisco & Muir Woods

Last in a five-part series (see part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4)

A view looking up Lombard Street, the famous “crooked street” in San Francisco.

We concluded our tour in San Francisco.

Left: San Francisco harbor, with Alcatraz in the distance. Right: The view down Lombard Street.

Left: We had just crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. The view looking back at San Francisco was hazy indeed, and a photo of the bridge itself impossible. Right: Just turn the camera 90 degrees to the left, and the view is a completely different story.

*

Muir Woods has some of the last old-growth Coast Redwoods near a major city. (The rest of them are much farther north.) By 1900, most of the original redwood forests had been cut down. Muir Woods remained intact mainly because it was extremely difficult to reach. Businessman William Kent bought the 295-acre site in 1905 and donated it to the Federal Government. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed it a national monument in 1908.

Left: Entrance to Muir Woods National Monument. Right: A view of the redwoods from a distance (actually taken after we had left the park).

Left: Yup, they sure are tall. Right: There are many downed trees in the park. Though the redwoods are among the longest-lived trees, they do eventually fall after 1,000 to 1,500 years, or so.

Left: Note the odd growth pattern of the tree on the right. Right: Robert inside a “fairy ring” of related trees. Note the fire damage on the large center tree. There hasn’t been a major fire at Muir Woods in 150 years, but many of the trees have lingering scars from past fires. Though fire damages redwoods, it seldom kills them. They actually benefit from occasional fires, which kill off less hardy species, opening the canopy to sunlight, and making room for new redwood seeds to germinate.

Left: A waterfall. Right: Sometimes, a fallen tree blocks the path. Here, there was just enough space to squeeze through.

Left: The bulbous structure is called a “burl.” Normally they are closer to the ground, but this one is up in the air. Eventually, a new trunk will sprout from here. Right: Father and son inside a hollowed-out tree trunk.

Pacific Coast Highway Album: Monterey Bay Aquarium

Fourth in a five-part series (see part 1, part 2, part 3)

There is plenty to keep you busy along the waterfront in Monterey, including Fisherman’s Wharf, Cannery Row, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Cannery Row, immortalized in the John Steinbeck novel, is now crassly commercial, as if Disney were operating it. The aquarium, at least, is entirely genuine.

Left & right: A shark in the kelp exhibit.

Left: The aquatic bird exhibit. Right: A school of small fish.

Left & right: Jellies.

Left & right: The coral reef exhibit.

Left & right: South African penguins. The one in the left foreground is molting.

Left & right: We give the penguins the last word.

Pacific Coast Highway Album: San Simeon to Monterey

Second in a five-part series (see part 1, part 2)

The segment of California Highway 1 between San Simeon and Monterey offers some of the most spectacular scenery in the world. The road is two lanes for most of the route, twisting and turning through mountain passes. This was about a three-hour drive.

Left & right: Not long past San Simeon, there’s an outlook onto a beach where California Seals sun themselves. They didn’t budge during the time we were there, except to spray sand onto themselves with their flippers. We were fortunate to see them, as it was the third week of March, and their beach season ends around April 1st.

Left: I have to assume this is a father and pup. The larger individual seems too bulky to be a female. Right: No seals in this photo, but this is the view at the same stop, just a couple of hundred feet north.

Left & right: The road to Monterey

Left & right: The road to Monterey

Left: The Bixby Bridge, built in 1932. Right: The view beyond Bixby Bridge.