The Mary Anne
By Joe Smith

At the very end of its sullen journey through the hills of the Coast Range, the Noyo makes several last-minute twists and turns. The river widens and slows down, almost as if it were somehow trying to sneak up on the sea, trying to figure out some way to avoid pouring its waters into that blue oblivion. Today would be a superb day to pull such a trick, if that's really what the Noyo has in mind....

Art Amongst the Vines
By Abigail Sawyer

Rene di Rosa has made a life of rebelling against convention. He has also amassed one of the most compelling and extensive modern art collections this side of the Sierras, which he proudly shares with the public who come from all over to visit the di Rosa Art & Nature preserve in southwestern Napa County...

God's Verse
By Joe Smith

"Does God write verse?"

This was only one of the fifty questions put to Captain Mellersh, aboard the British gunboat "Rattler." He had been sent in the summer of 1854 on a fact-finding mission up the Yangtse to Nanking, where a rebellious sect of Chinese Christian fanatics had defeated the armies of the reigning Manchus and established a rival kingdom....

Smelling a Skunk -- Lumber Politics
By Jennifer Poole

Along the historic Skunk Train line in Mendocino County there's a slope so steep the railroad cars have to travel eight miles of loops and turns to get one mile forward. It's a beautiful place, lush and green, with little creeks and waterfalls everywhere during the rainy months, and wildflowers in the spring....

Vendor's Story
By Liz Garone

For 27 years now, Richard Brielh has been following the same routine, with only slight variations in hours and locations.... He arrives at his stand at 10 a.m. and closes up around 5:30 p.m. He likes to take lunch at noon or a little after that. He times his day not by the clock perched above him on the wall, but by the mailman delivering and picking up the mail.... But this routine could become extinct in the near future....