Two weeks before the final Mad Men episode, another TV show featured Monterey County.

Last year, in August, a big, burly biker/former history teacher by the name of Stan Ellsworth, rode into town to visit a few Monterey County historical and literary spots. He did it for the love of American history. And because he was shooting his TV show American Ride. He spoke with the Weekly back then about his trip to these here parts, which you can revisit here.

That episode, called "California Dreamin'," is available to watch now (see the link at the bottom). And watch it you should. 

The show airs online on BYUtv, from private Mormon Brigham Young University, now in its seventh season. And in the intro to each show he espouses seemingly Duck Dynasty-ish phrases like "I've been called a rebel. And I am a country boy," and  "Where I come from we raise the flag with reverence, and we let her fly with pride." 

But the red meat is only garnish. 

Ellsworth has serious fidelity to the real details of history—all of it, including the stories of injustice, patriotism and resistance—and he is not afraid to show allegiance to homegrown rebels, like Chief Joseph of the Nez Pearce nation. 

The Monterey County episode opens with a majestic, soaring shot of the Pacific Ocean's coastline. Then the camera makes its way down to where Ellsworth rides north into Big Sur and expounds on the history of the region, like the Pacific Coast Highway.  

People in the late 1800s who knew the area wanted others to be able to experience it too, Ellsworth tells us. But access was difficult and treacherous. So the federal government wanted to build The Pacific Coast Highway 1. But a rancher in Malibu and his wife, who owned 17,000 acres, weren't willing to allow it.

It took 30 years and a Supreme Court battle to force a sale that opened the Big Sur coast to the government to build Highway 1, which allowed subsequent millions of us access to its profound beauty. The government actually sided with and fought on behalf of the people in singing "This land is our land."

Ellsworth seems to love stories like that. (And one backdrop for his narration is seemingly the same one used in the last episode of Mad Men.)  

He also visits Weston Gallery and Robinson Jeffers Tor House in Carmel, and a lettuce field of Crown Packing Company and the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, where former Herald reporter and Baktun 12 rapper Marcos Cabrera, in his capacity as then-Steinbeck Center marketing dude, takes him on a tour of the facilities. 

It's a good show. And an enthusiastic showcase (as I like to think the Weekly also does well) of where we get to live. Watch it here.