Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway
Bibliographic Information Author Gladding, Effie P. Genre Non-Fiction Journal or Book Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway Publisher Brentano's Year of Publication 1915 Pages 22-36 Additional information - Introduction [ edit | edit source ] A FOREWORD THAT IS A RETROSPECT From the Pacific to the Atlantic by the Lincoln Highway, with California and the Virginias and Maryland thrown in for good measure! What a tour it has been! As we think back over its miles we recall the noble pines and the towering Sequoias of the high Sierras of California; the flashing water-falls of the Yosemite, so green as to be called Vernal, so white as to be called Bridal Veil; the orchards of the prune, the cherry, the walnut, the olive, the almond, the fig, the orange, and the lemon, tilled like a garden, watered by the hoarded and guarded streams from the everlasting hills; and the rich valleys of grain, running up to the hillsides and dotted by live oak trees. We recall miles of vineyard under perfect cultivation. We see again the blue of the Pacific and the green of the forest cedars and cypresses. High Lake Tahoe spreads before us, with its southern fringe of emerald meadows and forest pines, and its encircling guardians, lofty and snow-capped. The high, grey-green deserts of Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming stretch before us once more, and we can smell the clean, pungent sage brush. We are not lonely, for life is all about us. The California quail and blue-jay, the eagle, the ground squirrel, the gopher, the coyote, the antelope, the rattlesnake, the big ring snake, the wild horse of the plains, the jack rabbit, the meadow lark, the killdeer, the red-winged blackbird, the sparrow hawk, the thrush, the redheaded wood-pecker, the grey dove, all have been our friends and companions as we have gone along. We have seen them in their native plains and forests and from the safe vantage point of the front seat of our motor car. animal car desert driving East highway infrastructure mountain ocean plains road safety scenery smell tree West vision The lofty peaks of the Rockies have towered before us in a long, unbroken chain as we have looked at them from the alfalfa fields of Colorado. scenery We have seen the bread and the cornbread of a nation growing on the rolling prairies of Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois. We have crossed the green, pastoral stretches of Indiana and Ohio and Pennsylvania. The red roads of Virginia, winding among her laden orchards of apples and peaches and pears and her lush forests of oak and pine; the yellow roads of Maryland, passing through her fertile fields and winding in and out among the thousand water ways of her coast line, all come before us. These are precious possessions of experience and memory, the choice, intimate knowledge to which the motorist alone can attain. agriculture coast forest Midwest road road condition tree The Friends of the Open Road are ours; the homesteader in his white canopied prairie schooner, the cattleman on his pony, the passing fellow motorist, the ranchman at his farmhouse door, the country inn-keeper hospitably speeding us on our way. affect driver metaphor pleasure We have a new conception of our great country; her vastness, her varied scenery, her prosperity, her happiness, her boundless resources, her immense possibilities, her kindness and hopefulness. We are bound to her by a thousand new ties of acquaintance, of association, and of pride. The Lincoln Highway is already what it is intended to be, a golden road of pleasure and usefulness, fitly dedicated, and destined to inspire a great patriotism and to honour a great patriot. highway infrastructure road sublime October, 1914. ... city scenery West Chapter II [ edit | edit source ] In the heart of San Francisco stands a tall, slender iron pillar, with a bell hanging from its down-turned top, like a lily drooping on its stalk. This bell is a northern guide post of the famous El Camino Real, the old highway of the Spanish monks and monasteries on which still stand the ruins of the ancient Mission churches and cloisters. We purpose to drive south the entire length of the six hundred miles of El Camino Real; and then turning northward to cross the mountain backbone of the State of California, and to come up through the vast and fertile stretches of its western valleys, meeting the Lincoln Highway at the town of Stockton. driving highway infrastructure mountain navigation scenery It is the morning of the 21st of April when we swing around the graceful bell, run along Market Street to the Masonic Temple, turn left into Mission Road, and from Mission Road come again into El Camino Real. We first pass through the usual fringe of cheap houses, road saloons, and small groceries that surrounds a great city. Then comes a group of the city's cemeteries, "Cypress Grove," "Home of Peace," and others. We have a bumpy road in leaving the city, followed by a fine stretch of smooth, beautiful cement highway. On through rolling green country we drive, and into the suburb of Burlingame with its vine covered and rose embowered bungalows, and its houses of brown shingle and of stucco. The finer places sit far back from the road in aristocratic privacy, with big, grassy parks shaded by noble trees in front, and with the green foothills as a background. architecture class driving infrastructure plant road road condition road side tree navigation highway At San Mateo, a town with the usual shaven and parked immaculateness of highclass suburbs, we have luncheon in a simple little pastry shop. The woman who gaily serves us with excellent ham sandwiches, cake, and coffee, tells us that she is from Alsace-Lorraine. She and her husband have found their way to California. From San Mateo we drive to Palo Alto, where we spend some time in visiting Leland Stanford University. The University buildings of yellow sandstone with their warm red tiled roofs look extremely well in the southern sun. Here are no hills and inequalities. All the buildings stand on perfectly level ground, the situation well suited to the long colonnades and the level lines of the buildings themselves. It is worth the traveler's while to walk through the long cloisters and to visit the rich and beautiful church, whose restoration from the ravages of the earthquake is about completed. With its tiling and mosaic work, its striking mottoes upon the walls, and its fine windows, it is very like an Italian church. architecture infrastructure class driving urban The town of Palo Alto is a pretty little settlement, depending upon the University for its life. From Palo Alto we drive on into the Santa Clara Valley. We are too late to see the fruit trees in bloom, a unique sight; but the valley stretches before us in all its exquisite greenness and freshness after the spring rains. Miles of fruit trees, as carefully pruned and weeded and as orderly in every detail as a garden, are on every side of us. Prune trees, cherry trees, and apricot trees; there are thousands of them, in a most beautiful state of cultivation and fruitfulness. No Easterner who has seen only the somewhat untidy and carelessly cultivated orchards of the East can imagine the exquisite order and detailed cultivation of the California fruit orchards. We saw miles of such orchards always in the same perfect condition. Not a leaf, not a branch, not a weed is left in these orchards. They are plowed and harrowed, sprayed and pruned, down to the last corner of every orchard, and the last branch of every tree. agriculture driving plant road side tree Through the clean aisles, between the green rows, run the channels for the precious water that has traveled from the mountains to the plains to turn tens of thousands of acres into a fair and fruitful garden. agriculture mountain plains The Santa Clara Valley is one of the loveliest valleys of all California, and indeed of all the world. Set amid its orchards are tasteful houses and bungalows, commodious and architecturally pleasing; very different from the box-like farmhouses of the Middle West and the East. On either side rise high green hills. It is a picture of beauty wherever one looks. architecture At Santa Clara, on our way to San José, we stop to see the Santa Clara Mission, just at the edge of the town. All that remains of the first Mission is enclosed within a wall, the new church and the flourishing new school standing next to the enclosure. architecture city road side In the middle of the valley is the city of San José, an active, bustling town, full of life and business. We spent a pleasant day at the Hotel Vendome, an old-fashioned and delightful hostel, surrounded by a park of fine trees and flowering shrubs. The Vendome is a good place in which to rest and bask in the sunshine. When we next motor through the Santa Clara Valley, we shall visit the New Almaden quicksilver mine, twelve miles from San José, and commanding from its slopes a wondrous view of the valley and the Garden City, as San José is called. And there is the interesting trip from San José to Mt. Hamilton and the Lick Observatory. One can motor by a good road to the summit of the mountain, 4,209 feet above sea level, and spend the night at the hotel below on the mountain slope. city driving infrastructure mountain road road condition Leaving San José, we were more and more charmed with the valley as we drove along through orderly orchards and past tasteful bungalows. This was the California of laden orchards, of roses and climbing geraniums, of green hills rising beyond the valleys, of which we had read. As we approached the foot hills of the Santa Cruz Mountains we looked back and saw the green valley with its ranks of trees unrolled below us. Passing through the little town of Los Gatos (The Cats), we began to climb. As we turned a curve on the winding mountain road, the green expanses of the Happy Valley were lost to view. We were coming now into the region of immense pine trees and of the coast redwoods, the Sequoia sempervirens. The road was fair but very winding, requiring close attention. We crossed singing brooks and passed wayside farms high in the hills, with their little patches of orchard and grain. We saw a big signboard indicating the two-mile road to the Montezuma Ranch School for boys, and shortly after were at the top of the grade. Then came the descent, the road still winding in and out among the forests. At the Hotel de Redwood, a simple hostel for summer sojourners from the valleys, we saw a magnificent clump of redwoods, around which had been built a rustic seat. At the foot of the hill we turned left instead of right, thus omitting from our itinerary the town of Santa Cruz and the redwoods of the Big Basin. We hope to see this noble group of trees sometime in the future. We took luncheon in a little at café at Watsonville. When I asked the young German waiter for steamed clams he said, "Oh! you mean dem big fellers!" From Watsonville, a bright little town, we drove on toward Salinas, making a detour which took us around the town instead of directly through it. We were crossing the green plains of the Salinas Valley, and before us rose the dark wooded heights of the famous Monterey Peninsula. On through the town of Monterey to Pacific Grove, a mile beyond, and we were soon resting in an ideal bungalow watched over by two tall pines. What a memorable week we spent at "Woodwardia"! A quarter of a mile to our right was the sea, whose sound came up to us plainly on still nights. Less than a quarter of a mile to our left were the forest and the beginning of the Seventeen Mile Drive. We took the drive once and again, paying the seventy-five cent entrance fee at the gate of the Pacific Improvement Company's domain, thus becoming free to wander about in the great wooded territory of the Peninsula. We took luncheon at the picturesque Pebble Lodge, where we had soup served in shining abalone shells, and where the electric lights were shaded by these shells. We halted in leisurely fashion along the Drive to climb over the rocks and to scramble up the high dunes, with their riot of flowering beach peas. They were ideal places to sit and dream with the blue sea before one and the dark forest behind. We photographed the wind-swept cypress trees, beaten and twisted into witchlike shapes by the free Pacific breezes. We watched the seals, lazily basking in the sun on the rocks off shore. We visited the picturesque village of Carmel, where artists and writers consort. We selected, under the spell of all this beauty, numerous sites for bungalows on exquisite Carmel Bay, where one might enjoy forever and a day the fascination of the sea and the spell of the pine forests. agriculture driving forest mountain navigation ocean risk road road condition road side scenery tree We visited the Carmel Mission, now standing lonely and silent in the midst of green fields. A few of the old pear trees planted by the Mission fathers still maintain a gnarled and aged existence in an orchard across the road from the church. The church is a simple structure with an outside flight of adobe steps, such as one sees in Italian houses, running up against the wall to the bell tower. At the left of the altar are the graves of three priests, one being that of Father Junípero Serra, the founder of many of the Missions, the devoted Spanish priest and statesman who more than once walked the entire length of six hundred miles along which his Missions were planted. A wall pulpit stands out from the right wall of the church. The most touching thing in the empty, dusty, neglected little place is a partly obliterated Spanish inscription on the wall of the small room to the left of the main body of the church. It is said to have been painted there by Father Serra himself, and reads, being translated: "Oh, Heart of Jesus, always shining and burning, illumine mine with Thy warmth and light." agriculture tree architecture road road side A memorable excursion was to Point Lobos beyond Carmel village, a rocky promontory running out like a wedge-shaped plateau into the sea. One approaches the sea across exquisite green, turfy spaces, shaded by pine trees, to find the point of the wedge far above the water, cut by rocky and awesome gashes into which the waves run with a long rush and against whose walls they boom continually. The quiet woods of Point Lobos do not prepare one for the magnificence of its outlook and the wonderful sight of its great rocks rising ruggedly and precipitously far above the water. I have seen the entire three hundred miles of the French and Italian Riviera, having motored all along that enchanting coast; and I am free to say that Point Lobos is as fine a bit of scenery as one will find, not only on the Pacific Coast but along the Mediterranean shore. scenery coast driving forest sublime Point Lobos was purchased a number of years ago by a Pacific Grove gentleman who had an eye for its rare beauty and grandeur, and who has built for himself a modest home on a green meadow at the entrance to the promontory. A small admission fee is charged for the Point, largely to exclude those who in former days, when the Point was free to excursionists, abused this privilege. class The owner has established on a little cove a short distance from his house an abalone canning factory. Here the Japanese and other divers bring their boat loads of this delicious shellfish. Monterey Bay is the home of the abalone and it has been so ruthlessly fished for that new laws have had to be made to protect it. The big, soft creature, as large as a tea plate, fastens itself to rocks and other surfaces, its one shell protecting it from above. The diver slips under it his iron spatula, and by a quick and skillful twist detaches it from its firm anchorage. Abalone soup has a delicate flavor, really superior to clam soup. Both the exterior and the lining of the abalone shell have most exquisite coloring and are capable of a high polish. In the lining of the shell there is often found the beautiful blister or abalone pearl, formed by the same process as the oyster pearl, the animal throwing out a secretion at the point where it is irritated. The result is a blister on the smooth lining of the shell which when cut out and polished shows beautiful coloring, ranging from satiny yellow to changing greens. We spent an hour in wandering about the canning factory, looking over heaps of cast-off shells, admiring their beautiful lining, and choosing some to carry with us across country to a far distant home. That many of the shells had had marketable blisters was shown by little squares cut in the lining. Another drive was that across Salinas Valley, through the bright and prosperous town of Salinas, up the steep San Juan grade, where one may eat luncheon on a green slope commanding a lovely view, and down into the little old town of San Juan, where stands the mission of San Juan Baptista, with its long cloisters still intact. Next to the Mission is an open square which is said to have been the scene of bull fights in the old Spanish days. driving road side A day was spent in driving over the Salinas road and the Rancho del Monte road, on through a lovely valley, up over the mountain along a shelf-like road, and down into Carmel Valley; then along another mountain road by a stream, and up again to the lush meadows of a private ranch twelve hundred feet above the sea. We left the car at the foot of the hill and drove in a farm wagon to the ranch house. We visited the vineyard on a sunny slope back of the house, so sheltered that grapes grow by the ton. We climbed into heavy Mexican saddles, ornately stamped, with high pommel and back, and rode astride sturdy horses over steep rounding hills through thick grass to view points where we could look down on Carmel Valley and off to the silvery sea. As we retraced our journey in the afternoon sunlight, a bobcat came out from the forest and trotted calmly ahead of us. A beautiful deer ran along the stream, his ears moving with alarm, his eyes watching us with fear and wonder. A great snake lay curled in the middle of the road and we ran over him before we really saw him. He made a feeble attempt to coil, but the heavy machine finished him. He was only a harmless ring snake, whose good office it is to kill the gophers that destroy the fruit trees, so we were sorry we had ended his useful career. He was the first of many snakes that we killed in California. Sometimes they lay straight across our road; sometimes they were stretched out in the ruts of the road and our wheels went over them before we could possibly see them; sometimes they made frantic efforts, often successful, to escape our machine; we always gave them a fighting chance. agriculture animal car death driving mountain ocean risk river road road condition roadkill It seemed that we would never tear ourselves away from the Monterey Peninsula. We wandered through the beautiful grounds of the Hotel del Monte with their ancient live oaks. We walked and mused along the streets of Monterey, where Robert Louis Stevenson once walked and mused. We rejoiced in the sight of a lovely old Spanish house at the head of Polk Street, carefully kept up by its present owner. We saw the Sherman Rose cottage, the old home of Sherman's Spanish love, and the Sherman-Halleck quarters, and the old Hall of Records. We stopped to gaze at old adobe dwelling houses, some with thick walls roofed with tile around their yards; some with second floor galleries, supported by plain, slender wooden posts, roses clambering over them. We visited the San Carlos Mission on the edge of the town. Unlike the deserted little church at Carmel, San Carlos is in excellent repair, perfectly kept and in constant use. There they show you some of the old vestments said to be Father Serra's own. There you may see his silver mass cards, with their Latin inscriptions engraved upon the upright silver plate, reading: "In the beginning was the Word," etc. The same beaten silver water bucket which Father Serra used for holy water is to-day used by the incumbent priest. On the walls are the adoring angels which Father Serra taught the Indians to paint. One of the special treasures of the Mission is Father Serra's beautiful beaten gold chalice, a consecrated vessel touched only by the priests. Back of the church is kept as a precious possession the stump of the old oak tree under which Father Serra celebrated his first mass and took possession of California in the name of Spain. The spot where the oak tree stood, on the highway between Monterey and Pacific Grove, is marked by a modest stone just below Presidio Hill. highway architecture tree We browsed about the curio and gift shops of Monterey, and the "Lame Duck's Exchange" of Pacific Grove. We saw Asilomar (Retreat-by-the-Sea), the fine conference grounds of the Young Women's Christian Associations of the Pacific Coast, whose commodious assembly and living halls are the gift of Mrs. Phœbe Hearst. We learned the delicious flavor, on many picnics, of the California ripe olive. One might be dubious about the satisfying quality of Omar Khayam's bottle of wine and loaf of bread "underneath the bough." But with the loaf of bread and plenty of California olives one could be perfectly content. I could have a feast of Lucullus any day in California on abalone soup, with its delicate sea flavor, bread, and olives.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# QUERYd7fcb7435146fdf28cbb76b7e8ebcf05
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A FOREWORD THAT IS A RETROSPECT
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# edd7bfd5ff9a839367cdfe1a0898d10c
From the Pacific to the Atlantic by the Lincoln Highway, with California and the Virginias and Maryland thrown in for good measure! What a tour it has been! As we think back over its miles we recall the noble pines and the towering Sequoias of the high Sierras of California; the flashing water-falls of the Yosemite, so green as to be called Vernal, so white as to be called Bridal Veil; the orchards of the prune, the cherry, the walnut, the olive, the almond, the fig, the orange, and the lemon, tilled like a garden, watered by the hoarded and guarded streams from the everlasting hills; and the rich valleys of grain, running up to the hillsides and dotted by live oak trees. We recall miles of vineyard under perfect cultivation. We see again the blue of the Pacific and the green of the forest cedars and cypresses. High Lake Tahoe spreads before us, with its southern fringe of emerald meadows and forest pines, and its encircling guardians, lofty and snow-capped. The high, grey-green deserts of Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming stretch before us once more, and we can smell the clean, pungent sage brush. We are not lonely, for life is all about us. The California quail and blue-jay, the eagle, the ground squirrel, the gopher, the coyote, the antelope, the rattlesnake, the big ring snake, the wild horse of the plains, the jack rabbit, the meadow lark, the killdeer, the red-winged blackbird, the sparrow hawk, the thrush, the redheaded wood-pecker, the grey dove, all have been our friends and companions as we have gone along. We have seen them in their native plains and forests and from the safe vantage point of the front seat of our motor car.
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The lofty peaks of the Rockies have towered before us in a long, unbroken chain as we have looked at them from the alfalfa fields of Colorado.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# 499a888adf9ece01be360531f9e2794a
We have seen the bread and the cornbread of a nation growing on the rolling prairies of Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois. We have crossed the green, pastoral stretches of Indiana and Ohio and Pennsylvania. The red roads of Virginia, winding among her laden orchards of apples and peaches and pears and her lush forests of oak and pine; the yellow roads of Maryland, passing through her fertile fields and winding in and out among the thousand water ways of her coast line, all come before us. These are precious possessions of experience and memory, the choice, intimate knowledge to which the motorist alone can attain.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# 1f65d2dba1b67fca1037b78d7955842b
The Friends of the Open Road are ours; the homesteader in his white canopied prairie schooner, the cattleman on his pony, the passing fellow motorist, the ranchman at his farmhouse door, the country inn-keeper hospitably speeding us on our way.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# 2c6a5664200c125d0e02d3d6cd92e953
We have a new conception of our great country; her vastness, her varied scenery, her prosperity, her happiness, her boundless resources, her immense possibilities, her kindness and hopefulness. We are bound to her by a thousand new ties of acquaintance, of association, and of pride.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# a6355aef4681a430024af7d63af8cb94
The Lincoln Highway is already what it is intended to be, a golden road of pleasure and usefulness, fitly dedicated, and destined to inspire a great patriotism and to honour a great patriot.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# ceab10f93b4afb7228151ec6b52c1ba3
October, 1914.
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In the heart of San Francisco stands a tall, slender iron pillar, with a bell hanging from its down-turned top, like a lily drooping on its stalk. This bell is a northern guide post of the famous El Camino Real, the old highway of the Spanish monks and monasteries on which still stand the ruins of the ancient Mission churches and cloisters. We purpose to drive south the entire length of the six hundred miles of El Camino Real; and then turning northward to cross the mountain backbone of the State of California, and to come up through the vast and fertile stretches of its western valleys, meeting the Lincoln Highway at the town of Stockton.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# 06863ce4add89d8525b991670e9214b0
It is the morning of the 21st of April when we swing around the graceful bell, run along Market Street to the Masonic Temple, turn left into Mission Road, and from Mission Road come again into El Camino Real. We first pass through the usual fringe of cheap houses, road saloons, and small groceries that surrounds a great city. Then comes a group of the city's cemeteries, "Cypress Grove," "Home of Peace," and others. We have a bumpy road in leaving the city, followed by a fine stretch of smooth, beautiful cement highway. On through rolling green country we drive, and into the suburb of Burlingame with its vine covered and rose embowered bungalows, and its houses of brown shingle and of stucco. The finer places sit far back from the road in aristocratic privacy, with big, grassy parks shaded by noble trees in front, and with the green foothills as a background.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# 23526357a16b36a36f2d887208674a1a
At San Mateo, a town with the usual shaven and parked immaculateness of highclass suburbs, we have luncheon in a simple little pastry shop. The woman who gaily serves us with excellent ham sandwiches, cake, and coffee, tells us that she is from Alsace-Lorraine. She and her husband have found their way to California. From San Mateo we drive to Palo Alto, where we spend some time in visiting Leland Stanford University. The University buildings of yellow sandstone with their warm red tiled roofs look extremely well in the southern sun. Here are no hills and inequalities. All the buildings stand on perfectly level ground, the situation well suited to the long colonnades and the level lines of the buildings themselves. It is worth the traveler's while to walk through the long cloisters and to visit the rich and beautiful church, whose restoration from the ravages of the earthquake is about completed. With its tiling and mosaic work, its striking mottoes upon the walls, and its fine windows, it is very like an Italian church.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# f23639e138cadb5e4b4513cf9c046346
The town of Palo Alto is a pretty little settlement, depending upon the University for its life.
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From Palo Alto we drive on into the Santa Clara Valley. We are too late to see the fruit trees in bloom, a unique sight; but the valley stretches before us in all its exquisite greenness and freshness after the spring rains. Miles of fruit trees, as carefully pruned and weeded and as orderly in every detail as a garden, are on every side of us. Prune trees, cherry trees, and apricot trees; there are thousands of them, in a most beautiful state of cultivation and fruitfulness. No Easterner who has seen only the somewhat untidy and carelessly cultivated orchards of the East can imagine the exquisite order and detailed cultivation of the California fruit orchards. We saw miles of such orchards always in the same perfect condition. Not a leaf, not a branch, not a weed is left in these orchards. They are plowed and harrowed, sprayed and pruned, down to the last corner of every orchard, and the last branch of every tree.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# 9943a2130ac9c5b9b96693b620900065
Through the clean aisles, between the green rows, run the channels for the precious water that has traveled from the mountains to the plains to turn tens of thousands of acres into a fair and fruitful garden.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# 574b289702ff15730f5065b721b8b8fb
The Santa Clara Valley is one of the loveliest valleys of all California, and indeed of all the world. Set amid its orchards are tasteful houses and bungalows, commodious and architecturally pleasing; very different from the box-like farmhouses of the Middle West and the East. On either side rise high green hills. It is a picture of beauty wherever one looks.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# a8eb9522a71443d4f73c341a3b10ad94
At Santa Clara, on our way to San José, we stop to see the Santa Clara Mission, just at the edge of the town. All that remains of the first Mission is enclosed within a wall, the new church and the flourishing new school standing next to the enclosure.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# b47b626485365d51e724f7dfaa5eece0
In the middle of the valley is the city of San José, an active, bustling town, full of life and business. We spent a pleasant day at the Hotel Vendome, an old-fashioned and delightful hostel, surrounded by a park of fine trees and flowering shrubs. The Vendome is a good place in which to rest and bask in the sunshine.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# 0e59a70df40832d6bf9f57053c85a725
When we next motor through the Santa Clara Valley, we shall visit the New Almaden quicksilver mine, twelve miles from San José, and commanding from its slopes a wondrous view of the valley and the Garden City, as San José is called. And there is the interesting trip from San José to Mt. Hamilton and the Lick Observatory. One can motor by a good road to the summit of the mountain, 4,209 feet above sea level, and spend the night at the hotel below on the mountain slope.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# 112dd291fdaee6d24f34fd3d65cf2d3d
Leaving San José, we were more and more charmed with the valley as we drove along through orderly orchards and past tasteful bungalows. This was the California of laden orchards, of roses and climbing geraniums, of green hills rising beyond the valleys, of which we had read. As we approached the foot hills of the Santa Cruz Mountains we looked back and saw the green valley with its ranks of trees unrolled below us. Passing through the little town of Los Gatos (The Cats), we began to climb. As we turned a curve on the winding mountain road, the green expanses of the Happy Valley were lost to view. We were coming now into the region of immense pine trees and of the coast redwoods, the Sequoia sempervirens. The road was fair but very winding, requiring close attention. We crossed singing brooks and passed wayside farms high in the hills, with their little patches of orchard and grain. We saw a big signboard indicating the two-mile road to the Montezuma Ranch School for boys, and shortly after were at the top of the grade. Then came the descent, the road still winding in and out among the forests. At the Hotel de Redwood, a simple hostel for summer sojourners from the valleys, we saw a magnificent clump of redwoods, around which had been built a rustic seat. At the foot of the hill we turned left instead of right, thus omitting from our itinerary the town of Santa Cruz and the redwoods of the Big Basin. We hope to see this noble group of trees sometime in the future. We took luncheon in a little at café at Watsonville. When I asked the young German waiter for steamed clams he said, "Oh! you mean dem big fellers!" From Watsonville, a bright little town, we drove on toward Salinas, making a detour which took us around the town instead of directly through it. We were crossing the green plains of the Salinas Valley, and before us rose the dark wooded heights of the famous Monterey Peninsula. On through the town of Monterey to Pacific Grove, a mile beyond, and we were soon resting in an ideal bungalow watched over by two tall pines. What a memorable week we spent at "Woodwardia"! A quarter of a mile to our right was the sea, whose sound came up to us plainly on still nights. Less than a quarter of a mile to our left were the forest and the beginning of the Seventeen Mile Drive. We took the drive once and again, paying the seventy-five cent entrance fee at the gate of the Pacific Improvement Company's domain, thus becoming free to wander about in the great wooded territory of the Peninsula. We took luncheon at the picturesque Pebble Lodge, where we had soup served in shining abalone shells, and where the electric lights were shaded by these shells. We halted in leisurely fashion along the Drive to climb over the rocks and to scramble up the high dunes, with their riot of flowering beach peas. They were ideal places to sit and dream with the blue sea before one and the dark forest behind. We photographed the wind-swept cypress trees, beaten and twisted into witchlike shapes by the free Pacific breezes. We watched the seals, lazily basking in the sun on the rocks off shore. We visited the picturesque village of Carmel, where artists and writers consort. We selected, under the spell of all this beauty, numerous sites for bungalows on exquisite Carmel Bay, where one might enjoy forever and a day the fascination of the sea and the spell of the pine forests.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# c3e110c648377eb1eef7ef77a8ab6fb1
We visited the Carmel Mission, now standing lonely and silent in the midst of green fields. A few of the old pear trees planted by the Mission fathers still maintain a gnarled and aged existence in an orchard across the road from the church. The church is a simple structure with an outside flight of adobe steps, such as one sees in Italian houses, running up against the wall to the bell tower. At the left of the altar are the graves of three priests, one being that of Father Junípero Serra, the founder of many of the Missions, the devoted Spanish priest and statesman who more than once walked the entire length of six hundred miles along which his Missions were planted. A wall pulpit stands out from the right wall of the church. The most touching thing in the empty, dusty, neglected little place is a partly obliterated Spanish inscription on the wall of the small room to the left of the main body of the church. It is said to have been painted there by Father Serra himself, and reads, being translated: "Oh, Heart of Jesus, always shining and burning, illumine mine with Thy warmth and light."
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A memorable excursion was to Point Lobos beyond Carmel village, a rocky promontory running out like a wedge-shaped plateau into the sea. One approaches the sea across exquisite green, turfy spaces, shaded by pine trees, to find the point of the wedge far above the water, cut by rocky and awesome gashes into which the waves run with a long rush and against whose walls they boom continually. The quiet woods of Point Lobos do not prepare one for the magnificence of its outlook and the wonderful sight of its great rocks rising ruggedly and precipitously far above the water. I have seen the entire three hundred miles of the French and Italian Riviera, having motored all along that enchanting coast; and I am free to say that Point Lobos is as fine a bit of scenery as one will find, not only on the Pacific Coast but along the Mediterranean shore.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# 58c0185a2a079c294e4983cf76f938f6
Point Lobos was purchased a number of years ago by a Pacific Grove gentleman who had an eye for its rare beauty and grandeur, and who has built for himself a modest home on a green meadow at the entrance to the promontory. A small admission fee is charged for the Point, largely to exclude those who in former days, when the Point was free to excursionists, abused this privilege.
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The owner has established on a little cove a short distance from his house an abalone canning factory. Here the Japanese and other divers bring their boat loads of this delicious shellfish. Monterey Bay is the home of the abalone and it has been so ruthlessly fished for that new laws have had to be made to protect it. The big, soft creature, as large as a tea plate, fastens itself to rocks and other surfaces, its one shell protecting it from above. The diver slips under it his iron spatula, and by a quick and skillful twist detaches it from its firm anchorage. Abalone soup has a delicate flavor, really superior to clam soup. Both the exterior and the lining of the abalone shell have most exquisite coloring and are capable of a high polish. In the lining of the shell there is often found the beautiful blister or abalone pearl, formed by the same process as the oyster pearl, the animal throwing out a secretion at the point where it is irritated. The result is a blister on the smooth lining of the shell which when cut out and polished shows beautiful coloring, ranging from satiny yellow to changing greens. We spent an hour in wandering about the canning factory, looking over heaps of cast-off shells, admiring their beautiful lining, and choosing some to carry with us across country to a far distant home. That many of the shells had had marketable blisters was shown by little squares cut in the lining.
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Another drive was that across Salinas Valley, through the bright and prosperous town of Salinas, up the steep San Juan grade, where one may eat luncheon on a green slope commanding a lovely view, and down into the little old town of San Juan, where stands the mission of San Juan Baptista, with its long cloisters still intact. Next to the Mission is an open square which is said to have been the scene of bull fights in the old Spanish days.
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A day was spent in driving over the Salinas road and the Rancho del Monte road, on through a lovely valley, up over the mountain along a shelf-like road, and down into Carmel Valley; then along another mountain road by a stream, and up again to the lush meadows of a private ranch twelve hundred feet above the sea. We left the car at the foot of the hill and drove in a farm wagon to the ranch house. We visited the vineyard on a sunny slope back of the house, so sheltered that grapes grow by the ton. We climbed into heavy Mexican saddles, ornately stamped, with high pommel and back, and rode astride sturdy horses over steep rounding hills through thick grass to view points where we could look down on Carmel Valley and off to the silvery sea. As we retraced our journey in the afternoon sunlight, a bobcat came out from the forest and trotted calmly ahead of us. A beautiful deer ran along the stream, his ears moving with alarm, his eyes watching us with fear and wonder. A great snake lay curled in the middle of the road and we ran over him before we really saw him. He made a feeble attempt to coil, but the heavy machine finished him. He was only a harmless ring snake, whose good office it is to kill the gophers that destroy the fruit trees, so we were sorry we had ended his useful career. He was the first of many snakes that we killed in California. Sometimes they lay straight across our road; sometimes they were stretched out in the ruts of the road and our wheels went over them before we could possibly see them; sometimes they made frantic efforts, often successful, to escape our machine; we always gave them a fighting chance.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# 4a21302232ecd426cb9d1712ddcbac16
It seemed that we would never tear ourselves away from the Monterey Peninsula. We wandered through the beautiful grounds of the Hotel del Monte with their ancient live oaks. We walked and mused along the streets of Monterey, where Robert Louis Stevenson once walked and mused. We rejoiced in the sight of a lovely old Spanish house at the head of Polk Street, carefully kept up by its present owner. We saw the Sherman Rose cottage, the old home of Sherman's Spanish love, and the Sherman-Halleck quarters, and the old Hall of Records. We stopped to gaze at old adobe dwelling houses, some with thick walls roofed with tile around their yards; some with second floor galleries, supported by plain, slender wooden posts, roses clambering over them.
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We visited the San Carlos Mission on the edge of the town. Unlike the deserted little church at Carmel, San Carlos is in excellent repair, perfectly kept and in constant use. There they show you some of the old vestments said to be Father Serra's own. There you may see his silver mass cards, with their Latin inscriptions engraved upon the upright silver plate, reading: "In the beginning was the Word," etc. The same beaten silver water bucket which Father Serra used for holy water is to-day used by the incumbent priest. On the walls are the adoring angels which Father Serra taught the Indians to paint. One of the special treasures of the Mission is Father Serra's beautiful beaten gold chalice, a consecrated vessel touched only by the priests. Back of the church is kept as a precious possession the stump of the old oak tree under which Father Serra celebrated his first mass and took possession of California in the name of Spain. The spot where the oak tree stood, on the highway between Monterey and Pacific Grove, is marked by a modest stone just below Presidio Hill.
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We browsed about the curio and gift shops of Monterey, and the "Lame Duck's Exchange" of Pacific Grove. We saw Asilomar (Retreat-by-the-Sea), the fine conference grounds of the Young Women's Christian Associations of the Pacific Coast, whose commodious assembly and living halls are the gift of Mrs. Phœbe Hearst. We learned the delicious flavor, on many picnics, of the California ripe olive. One might be dubious about the satisfying quality of Omar Khayam's bottle of wine and loaf of bread "underneath the bough." But with the loaf of bread and plenty of California olives one could be perfectly content. I could have a feast of Lucullus any day in California on abalone soup, with its delicate sea flavor, bread, and olives.
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway# 00075375cc6d2ab86c35245ccc686f45