One of my favorite "pilgrimages" was to Carmel CA to see Tor House and Hawk Tower, both built by the poet Robinson Jeffers for his wife Una and their twin sons. He used horses and pulleys to lift the large stones from the beach and place them in these unique structures. The website www.torhouse.org has much more information.

As a poet, Robinson Jeffers concentrated on the wilder aspects of nature. He loved living by the Pacific and had little patience with the foibles of humanity. Here is one of my favorites:


Civilized, crying how to be human again; this will tell you how.
Turn outward, love things, not men, turn right away from humanity,
Let that doll lie. Consider if you like how the lilies grow,
Lean on the silent rock until you feel its divinity
Make your veins cold, look at the silent stars, let your eyes
Climb the great ladder out of the pit of yourself and man.
Things are so beautiful, your love will follow your eyes;
Things are the God, you will love God, and not in vain,
For what we love, we grow to it, we share its nature. At length
You will look back along the stars' rays and see that even
The poor doll humanity has a place under heaven.
Its qualities repair their mosaic around you, the chips of strength
And sickness; but now you are free, even to become human,
But born of the rock and the air, not of a woman.