Robertson and Sokoloff on the Road- Day Five

Submitted: 30th June 2026

Robertson and Sokoloff on the Road- Day Five

Day Five

Craig and Alex at the start of their journey (c) Robertson and Sokoloff

The Grapevine book locations

Day five dawned suitably gloomy. It was cloudy and cold, and as Scottish as you could have wished for. This part of the coast south of San Francisco suffers from what the locals call June Gloom and means it’s regularly overcast and much colder than elsewhere in the state. Even somewhere like San Mateo, just 13 miles away can be hot with glorious sunshine while Half Moon Bay is doing a fair impression of a damp day in Largs.

Barnes and Noble (c) Robertson and Sokoloff

The Grapevine book locations

So it proved. Burlingame was toasty. We hit the Barnes & Noble where bookseller Audrey turned out to be an aspiring writer with plans to go travelling in an RV, and she was easily persuaded that The Grapevine was the book for her.

bookshop gang (c) Robertson and Sokoloff

The Grapevine book locations

Bella at Barnes & Noble in San Mateo was equally keen and got straight to work ordering in copies, as did Ayla at B&N in Redwood City. Amanda in the fabulous indie Fireside Books & More was a bundle of bookish energy and wanted to set up an in-store author event.

We moved on to Palo Alto where we met possibly our most enthusiastic booksellers yet – the party crowd at Books Inc. Lance Gabriel (resplendent in a kilt!), Beverley, Alice and Rachel were having a ball.

Books Inc – Palo Alto

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The Grapevine book locations

It was a great day on the road and all the hard miles in the RV all felt worth it to get the chance to talk to people who loved books, ours included, and were itching to spread the word to readers. There was a real sense of community spirit and a welcome reminder that the book world is pretty great.

The Grapevine book locations

Back at Half Moon Bay, Alex decided the day’s missionary work wasn’t over and took a couple of books to our RV neighbours who were sitting out watching the World Cup on TV (apparently, it’s still going on). Not surprisingly they ate up the premise of a mom in the family RV searching for her missing teenage daughter.

The Grapevine book locations

Mr RV Neighbour was a retired cop as well as an RV enthusiast and was happy to answer any research questions we had in the future – result! Not lonely that but he helped us flush out our grey and black waste tanks, a job I’d been dreading. We’ve withheld their names for now because one of us (not me) wants them to say this is okay.