Preface
The publishers tell me that the first large edition of "On Sunset Highways" has been exhausted and that the steady demand for the book warrants a reprint. I have, therefore, improved the occasion to revise the text in many places and to add descriptive sketches of several worth-while tours we subsequently made. As it stands now I think the book covers most of the ground of especial interest to the average motorist in California.
One can not get the best idea of this wonderful country from the railway train or even from the splendid electric system that covers most of the country surrounding Los Angeles. The motor that takes one into the deep recesses of hill and valley to infrequented nooks along the seashore and, above all, to the slopes and summits of the mountains, is surely the nearest approach to the ideal.
The California of to-day is even more of a motor paradise than when we made our first ventures on her highroads. There has been a substantial increase in her improved highways and every subsequent year will no doubt see still further extensions. The beauty and variety of her scenery will always remain and good roads will give easy access to many hereto almost inaccessible sections. And the charm of her romantic history will not decrease as the years go by. There is a growing interest in the still existing relics of the mission days and the Spanish occupation which we may hope will lead to their restoration and preservation. All of which will make motoring in California more delightful than ever.
I do not pretend in this modest volume to have covered everything worth while in this vast state; neither have I chosen routes so difficult as to be inaccessible to the ordinary motor tourist. I have not attempted a guide-book in the usual sense; my first aim has been to reflect by description and picture something of the charm of this favored country; but I hope that the book may not be unacceptable as a traveling companion to the motor tourist who follows us. Conditions of roads and towns change so rapidly in California that due allowance must be made by anyone who uses the book in this capacity. Up-to-the-minute information as to road conditions and touring conveniences may be had at the Automobile Club in Los Angeles or at any of its dozen branches in other towns in Southern California.
In choosing the paintings to be reproduced as color illustrations, I was impressed with the wealth of material I discovered; in fact, California artists have developed a distinctive school of American landscape art. With the wealth and variety of subject matter at the command of these enthusiastic western painters, it is safe to predict that their work is destined to rank with the best produced in America—and I believe that the examples which I show will amply warrant this prediction.
THE AUTHOR.