Carole Terwilliger Meyers' Weekend Adventures and Family Fun books have been an importance resource to me in my travel writings since her very first Northern California guide in the late 1970s.
Meyers main emphasis is on travel and adventures in Northern California.
Whenever I am setting out on a trip, I always consult her books...I never throw away even the oldest ones because they might just include a park or a restaurant or an attraction that didn't make the cut in an updated book version.
Carole's newest book, Weekend Adventures in San Francisco & Northern California was published almost a year ago.
While her earlier books emphasized traveling with children, because that's what she was doing at that stage of her life. Now that her family is grown and she isn't always traveling with children, this newest book (her 9th edition) has even broader appeal. But because her roots are with family-friendly travel, she makes sure that all concerns of travelers with children are addressed.
The book is organized by geographical area. She takes her readers through San Francisco and all its neighborhoods. Going North and South, she follows Highways 1, 101, and 5. Heading East, she covers travel destinations along Highways 80 and 880. She dedicates special chapters to travel along Highway 49 in Gold Rush Country, in the High Sierra, in the Santa Cruz Mountains, on the Delta, in Napa and Sonoma Wine Country, at Lake Tahoe, and to Snow Country. About her only omission is Contra Costa County which happens to be where I live. This omission might mean that she feels that there is nothing worth a visit in Contra Costa, or it could mean she's saving it for a future guide...we will never know.
I particularly like her "Annual Events" sections. Just glancing through her Oakland entry, I see that March and April is Tulip Bloom time at the Mountain View Cemetery. While I am familiar with the cemetery's location on Piedmont Avenue, I did not know that more than 22,000 tulips are in bloom there at this time of year. Guess I know where I will be off to next week.
Weekend Adventures is available in most bookstores and online, including Amazon.com. And, her book is constantly being updated online on the Weekend Adventures Update blog.
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