The Dining Cars Cafe is one of those rare sights along Highway 101 that is both supremely depressing and beautiful in its own right. What has remained serves as a testament to our changing culture. As an optimist I believe that our perceptions of past relics are changing, and our appreciation for these things will […]

The Bearings Blog ethos encompasses a simple ideology: The love of all things geographic, especially things that are human-inspired and influenced. The monuments and bones of the past are a vital component of recognizing our history, blunders, ingenuity, and culture. Nowhere is this more apparent in the Bay Area, which was perhaps THE most capitalistic […]

The Kualoa sugar cane refinery in Oahu began operation in 1863 by Charles H. Judd and Samuel G. Wilder. It met with little success and closed thirty years later.
What does bird guano and sugarcane have in common? Well, historical geography often has strange bedfellows. The photo above is the Kualoa Sugar Mill, an enterprise […]