Across America by Motor-cycle

by C. K. Shepherd

These Missions stand to-day, having with few exceptions been maintained intact in their original form, and they serve as beautiful testimonies to the genius of their builders. So admired is their style of architecture that they are religiously copied, more so now than ever before, in public buildings and sometimes private dwellings in all parts of the West. One even sees railway stations and tramway termini modelled in the form of one of these ancient Franciscan Missions!

If I was charmed with Ventura, I was thrice charmed with Santa Barbara, another wonderful coast town of modern style built on an ancient site. The old Santa Barbara Mission stands away up on the hill-sides of the Santa Ynez Range above the town and looks over the blue waters of the Pacific towards the craggy islands of Santa Cruz that lie beyond. For sheer delight of climate, scenery, and surroundings I would forsake any home in any town in any country that I have yet seen to live in Santa Barbara, had I the wherewithal to do so.

Following the coastline, and in many places separated from it only by a ridge of stones or a strip of vegetation, the road continues on its happy way for many miles. On the left splash the deep blue waters of the Pacific. On the right rise steeply the Santa Ynez Mountains, which like a link in a great chain form, with many others, more or less disjointed, the "coast range" that fringes the sea from Mexico to Oregon. Sometimes the road is bordered with Yucca palms, sometimes with pepper trees, and sometimes with eucalyptus. One even sees, almost simultaneously, cactus plants and prickly pears growing amid the parched-up grass on the sun-swept side of some unfriendly hill!

At Caviota, a few miles south of the famous "Point Conception," the road leaves the coast and swerves inland. Across the tip of the Santa Ynez Range it goes, swerving now to the left, then to the right, climbing, dipping, and swerving again for sixty or seventy miles until once more it catches a glimpse of the Pacific at El Pismo beach.

Near here I left the beaten track and followed a narrow pathway that led around a hill-side to the cliffs. Here I made my bed down once again in the long, dry grass that clothed the top. I could say with tolerable certainty that never before had a motor-cycle followed that path. It was soon no more than a little rut scarcely visible in the grassy slope. But I achieved my objective. With the murmur of the sea, as it dashed against the rocks a few hundred feet below, singing always in my ears, I passed one more night of exquisite repose and magic charm.

I awoke in the morning and sniffed the sea air. It was very attractive certainly, but was there not something the matter with it somehow? Or was it my imagination? I wriggled half out of bed and peered over the edge of the cliff. I stopped; I looked; I listened. Down there, on a little bed of white sand, lay a dead seal stretched out flat, as one would lay a tablecloth. He looked a dismal sight, poor fellow.

Ten miles more, inland again, and it was breakfast-time. We were at San Luis Obispo, a fine little town at the foot of the Santa Margarita—one more link in the coast range. San Luis Obispo took its name from an old Mission founded in 1772, and once was the centre of wealth among the Spaniards of the country.

Afterwards we cross the hills and continue northward. Always the Southern Pacific Railroad is on our right, sometimes just a few feet from the highway. The concrete has stopped and at intervals we have our old friend, the natural gravel. The laying of concrete is being proceeded with at many places, a hundred yards or so at a time, and detours running parallel at the side connect us up with the road ahead. Many little seedling towns are passed—all of them well planned and well advertised—and at last we come to Paso Robles (Pass of the Oaks), a larger town which derives its name from a great natural oak park. I should mention that oak trees are abundant in California and they grow often to a very great size.

We are now in the Salinas Valley, in proportion like a long, narrow groove 100 miles long cut in the face of the country. Through it runs the Salinas River, winding and bending with great sweeps through its sandy bed. At midsummer it is dried up completely, and, from the long wooden bridges that cross and re-cross it, looks like a sandy sea-beach, with fences across from one bank to the other to stop the cattle straying!