Stevenson and Fanny at their "Silverado" camp.

The Silverado Squatters (1883) is Robert Louis Stevenson's travel memoir of his two-month honeymoon trip with Fanny Vandegrift (and her son Lloyd Osbourne) to Napa Valley, California in the summer of 1880. Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis (Balfour) Stevenson (November 13, 1850 – December 3, 1894), was a Scottish novelist, poet, and travel writer. ... Travel literature is literature which records the people, events, sights and feelings of an author who is touring a foreign place for the sake and pleasure of travel. ... Fanny Vandergrift Osbourne Stevenson (10 March 1840 — ?) was the wife of Robert Louis Stevenson and mother of Lloyd Osbourne. ... Lloyd Osbourne (April 7, 1868 – 1947) was a U.S. author. ... Napa County is in north-central California Napa Valley is most famous for its wine. ... Official language(s) English Capital Sacramento Largest city Los Angeles Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 3rd 410,000 km² 402. ...

In July 1879, Stevenson received word that his future American wife's divorce was almost complete, but that she was seriously ill. He left Scotland right away and traveled to meet her in Monterey, California (his trip detailed in The Amateur Emigrant (1894) and Across the Plains (1892). Broken financially, suffering from a life-long fibronous bronchitis condition, and with his writing career at a dead end, he was nursed back to health by his doctor, his nurse, and his future wife, while living briefly in Monterey, San Francisco and Oakland. His father provided money to help, and he then married the San Francisco native on May 19, 1880 (they had first met in France in 1875, soon after the events of An Inland Voyage). Still too weak to undertake the journey back to Scotland, friends suggested Calistoga in the upper Napa Valley with its healthy mountain air. Nickname: The Cradle of History, Californias First City Motto: {{{motto}}} Official website: http://www. ... The Amateur Emigrant (in full: The Amateur Emigrant from the Clyde to Sandy Hook) is Robert Louis Stevensons travel memoir of his journey from Scotland to California in 1879-1880. ... Bronchitis is an obstructive pulmonary disease characterized by inflammation of the bronchi of the lungs. ... Nickname: The City by the Bay Motto: Official website: http://www. ... View of downtown Oakland looking west across Lake Merritt. ... May 19 is the 139th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (140th in leap years). ... 1880 (MDCCCLXXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Canal barges in Belgium. ... Location in California Founded  -Incorporated Jan. ...

They first went to the Hot Springs Hotel in Calistoga, but unable to afford the 10 dollars a week, it was arranged that they spent an unconventional honeymoon in an abandoned three-story bunkhouse at a derelict mining camp called "Silverado" on the shoulder of Mount Saint Helena. There they managed to "squat" for two months during a pleasant California summer, putting up makeshift cloth windows and hauling water in by hand from a nearby stream while dodging rattlesnakes and the occasional fog banks so detrimental to Stevenson's health. This article is about general United States currency. ... Italic textItalic textA honeymoon is the traditional trip taken by newlyweds to celebrate their marriage, and presumably, consummate it. ... This article is about occupying land without legal permission but with ethical intentions and means to use empty space usefully. ... Genera Crotalus (24 species) Sistrurus (3 species) Species 27, including: - Sidewinder - Massasauga Rattlesnakes are a group of venomous New World snakes, genera Crotalus and Sistrurus, which have a small noise-making jointed rattle on their tails. ...

The Silverado Squatters provides some interesting views of California during the late 19th century. Stevenson uses the first telephone of his life. He meets a number of wine growers in Napa Valley, an enterprise he deemed "experimental", with growers sometimes even mis-labeling the bottles as originating from Spain in order to sell their product to skeptical Americans. He visits the oldest wine grower in the valley, Jacob Schram, who had been "experimenting" for 18 years at his Schramsberg Winery, and had recently expanded the wine cellar in his backyard. Stevenson also visits a petrified forest owned by an old Norwegian ex-sailor who had stumbled upon it while clearing farmland — the precise nature of the petrified forest remained for everyone a source of curiosity. Stevenson also details his encounters with a local Jewish merchant, whom he compares to a character in a Charles Dickens novel (probably Fagin from Oliver Twist), and portrays as happy-go-lucky but always scheming to earn a dollar. Like Dickens in American Notes (1842), Stevenson found the American habit of spitting on the floor hard to get used to. The telephone or phone (Greek: tele = far away and phone = voice) is a telecommunications device which is used to transmit and receive sound (most commonly voice and speech) across distance. ... Wine is an alcoholic beverage produced by the fermentation of grapes and grape juice. ... Petrified log at the Petrified Forest National Park A petrified tree from California Petrified wood is a type of fossil, in which the tissues of a dead plant are replaced with minerals (most often a silicate, such as quartz). ... Charles Dickens was a prolific writer who was almost always working on a new instalment for a story and rarely missed a deadline. ... Fagin is a fictional character in the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. ... Oliver Twist is an 1838 novel by Charles Dickens. ... American Notes for General Circulation is a travelogue by Charles Dickens detailing his trip to North America in 1842. ...

His experiences at Silverado were kept in a journal he called "Silverado Sketches", parts of which were incorporated into Silverado Squatters in 1883 while living in Bournemouth, England, with other tales appearing in "Essays of Travel" and "Across the Plains". Many of his notes of the scenery around him later provided much of the descriptive detail for Treasure Island (1883). Bournemouth is a seaside resort on the south coast of England. ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location within the British Isles Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area – Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population – Total (mid-2004) – Total (2001 Census) – Density Ranked 1st UK... Treasure Island. ...

The Robert Louis Stevenson State Park now encompasses the area where he stayed. The entrance to Silverado is at the summit of Highway 29. A new trail has been constructed in recent years. The "Silverado Museum" in St. Helena, California is dedicated to Robert Louis Stevenson. St. ...

References and sources

• The Silverado Squatters, ISBN 1562790978, 1996 paperback in-print. Also available in many out if print editions and compilations.
• The Silverado Squatters, HTML version from the University of Virginia.
• The Silverado Squatters at Project Gutenberg
• The Silverado Squatters, HTML version with scanned images, from the Library of Congress
• Silverado Museum in St. Helena, California, devoted to Robert Louis Stevenson.