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I found that many businesses were incredibly resilient. In the first OTBT I wrote and photographed, ARC Guitars in Winters had almost folded during lockdowns. But owner Al Calderone adjusted his guitar building lesson plans, instituting an intensive three-week, one-on-one, socially distanced course in the back of the shop and made it through the crisis.

At Yuba City’s Western Depot, one of the few remaining brick-and-mortar model train shops in the Capital Region, the nearly five-decades-old business shut its doors to foot traffic and concentrated on an already strong online sales presence, surprisingly growing its sales by around 15 percent during the COVID lockdown year.

Authoring OTBT for almost five years has provided a parade of memorable experiences — visiting small towns like Mokelumne Hill and Dutch Flat, getting up close with several haunted buildings; taking a balloon ride over the stunningly beautiful Capay Valley; having an inside view of the annual parade at Marysville’s colorful and loud Bok Kai festival; and, sadly, being inside one of the oldest Delta businesses just weeks before it burned down.

The monthly series, officially ending with this farewell after a 50-story run, endured much longer than I imagined when it was first offered in late November 2020 by then-editors Sena Christian and Tom Couzens. The goal was to profile unique businesses in out-of-the-way places within Comstock’s 10-county Capital Region coverage area, which stretches from San Joaquin County up to the Sierra Nevada. The series eventually evolved into also including destination locations, and it took me to many places that, as a California native, I never knew existed.

Some weren’t exactly “off the beaten track,” such as Vacaville’s The Rock Shop, located on an Interstate 80 frontage road. The store’s huge selection of rocks and minerals — the largest of its kind on the West Coast — made it an amazing discovery to those who ventured into its 15,000-foot showroom.

Every month, I loved learning the back histories and intricacies of many family-owned businesses, some warily weaving their way through multiple generations. Truckee’s oldest business, the clothing store Cabona’s, was one example, where Stefanie Olivieri, who took the family business over when she was in college in the late 1960s, still works the floor serving customers. Olivieri embodies the mountain spirit of the Truckee region, born on a kitchen table in Tahoe City at Lake Inn (later the Pfeifer House), which her family owned at the time.

Another discovery was that stories of otherworldly presences seem to persist at any structure dating to the Gold Rush era, from the Grass Valley Museum, a former orphanage run by nuns that would take in children whose fathers died in the local mines; to hotels such as the Ryde Hotel in Walnut Grove, the refurbished Holbrooke Hotel in Grass Valley, the National Exchange Hotel in Nevada City and the super spooky National Hotel in Jackson, where employees shared their personal stories of ghostly experiences.

Probably my most unforgettable story during the OTBT run was a sad one, involving Giusti’s Place in Walnut Grove, a must-stop for visitors of the Delta region for over 100 years. Run by Mark Morais with his wife, Linda, their three children and 20 employees, Giusti’s was in its fourth generation of family ownership and had called the historic Miller Ferry Saloon building home since 1912.

With the story set to run in the October 2021 issue, I visited Giusti’s on August 11, interviewed Mark Morais, talked to the lunchtime regulars at the bar and marveled at the 1,500 baseball caps on the ceiling. The story was submitted, and then on the afternoon of September 9, I learned from news reports that fire had engulfed Giusti’s and burned it to the ground. The next day, my story ran as a memorial to the Delta icon and later became Comstock’s most-read story of 2021.

Finally, with the end of the OTBT series, I want to acknowledge all the friends, family and Comstock’s editors, including current OTBT editor Dakota Morlan, who gave me ideas, helping readers discover what makes the Capital Region such an enchanting place. While the series may be ending, those little-known and out-of-the-way treasures are still out there, and Comstock’s will continue to bring them to you.

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