My Bookshelves Display My Souvenirs from Around the World

Yes, I like to read my souvenirs.

We got back the other day from our second visit this year to Yosemite, our favorite National Park. We only made two stops this time, one to gaze at the famous Tunnel View on CA-41 just before the entrance to Yosemite Valley (and take some pictures, of course!). And the other to walk around a bit in Yosemite Village, visit a couple of stores and purchase a souvenir.

One of the places we visited in Yosemite Village was the Ansel Adams Gallery which includes a bookstore.

And there I discovered Sierra Stories by Gary Noy. This book is our souvenir from our two short trips to Yosemite this year.

On our previous visit to Yosemite in May of this year we only stopped at the tunnel view and a few places on the valley floor to photograph El Capitan, Bridalveil and Yosemite Falls. It was pouring rain that day and many of the valley meadows and parking lots looked like lakes. So, we hightailed back to Mariposa and did not stop at any store. Sierra Stories, then, is the souvenir from both trips.

In my profile, I write about how I read books and then travel to places I read about. Well, I also tend to buy a book or two at these places and then bring them home as souvenirs of our trip.

My last day of work in this world was in November 1999. Since then, we have traveled extensively, and I have acquired several books from our favorite destinations.

We traveled to Northern Italy in 2009 and I brought back a book from Florence on Michelangelo and one from Milan on Leonardo. From Venice I obtained a book on the history of the Doges Palace and another on the art that can be seen inside the Basilica of Santa Maria Gloriosa Dei Frari. Titian’s Assumption of the Virgin (aka Assunta) is the most famous painting in that church.

The Prado Museum in Madrid is famous for its collection of paintings by two Spanish giants in the arts: Goya and Velazquez. I visited the Prado in 2010 and brought back a big book on Velazquez. This was a mistake. The book was very heavy and took a lot of space in my luggage. From then on, I have concentrated on thinner, lighter books.

One day in Dublin in 2019 I walked from our hotel on the River Liffey to the James Joyce Center a few blocks away on North Great George’s Street. I read Ulysses before our trip. It took me four months to get through it. At the James Joyce Center, I purchased a book that helped me understand what I read.

Ulysses Unbound, like other books on the subject, compares the scenes and events in Leopold Bloom’s walk around Dublin to Homer’s Odyssey. This book also attempts to explain dialogues and conversations in the book with references to the many political issues of the day in Dublin around the dawn of the 20th century. Joyce also had a knack of coining his own words, as well as spelling other words and punctuating sentences the way he wanted to. This book tries to explain all these quirks and foibles, too. And whether he is serious or just joking!

So, what about my latest souvenir? Sierra Stories was written by Gary Noy, a history professor at Sierra Collège in Rocklin, CA. I think the book’s subtitle won me over: Tales of Dreamers, Schemers, Bigots, and Rogues. Noy won the Educator of the year award in 2006 from the Oregon-California Trails Association, a popular historical organization in the American West. Noy retired from Sierra College in 2012 but is still involved with many of the school’s historical and cultural projects.

I’ll let you know what I thought of the book after I read it.

I bring my camera along on all of our trips and I consider my photos as souvenirs, too. Sometimes I produce a book of my favorite photos on a trip. Here are a few books from our trip to Italy in 2009.

Some of our fondest memories are of the trips we took with our grandson when he was growing up. A few times we combined my photos with excerpts from the journal he kept and published them. Of course, they are among our most favorite souvenirs of all!

Students in California’s public schools learn about the California Missions in the fourth grade. The teacher usually assigns one of the 29 Missions to each student for further research. The mission assigned to our grandson was La Purisma Concepcion near the town of Lompoc in central California.

So, we went on a short road trip to Lompoc during the summer of 2012. I took a lot of photos and Tyler kept a detailed journal. When we got back home, we produced our monumental souvenir book, thanks to Adobe Lightroom and the Blurb book publishers.

Can you guess which of all my souvenir books is my favorite?

I wrote about our first trip to Yosemite this year when I divulged that my favorite A-Z destination starting with the letter M was Mariposa. Compare the Tunnel View photo at the top of this story with the one I took five months ago.

Here are two Globetrotters stories that inspired me: I like to read my souvenirs. Anne Bonfert likes to wear hers.

Geo Snelling likes to wear his on his skin.

Thanks for reading!