CHAPTER VII.
THE WINTER ON THE COAST.
But the distinction of this coast, and that which will forever make it attractive at the season when the North Atlantic is forbidding, is that the ocean-side is as equable, as delightful, in winter as in summer. Its sea-side places are truly all-the-year-round resorts. In subsequent chapters I shall speak in detail of different places as to climate and development and peculiarities of production. I will now only give a general idea of Southern California as a wintering place. Even as far north as Monterey, in the central part of the State, the famous Hotel del Monte, with its magnificent park of pines and live-oaks, and exquisite flower-gardens underneath the trees, is remarkable for its steadiness of temperature. I could see little difference between the temperature of June and of February. The difference is of course greatest at night. The maximum the year through ranges from about 65° to about 80°, and the minimum from about 35° to about 58°, though there are days when the thermometer goes above 90°, and nights when it falls below 30°.
ROSE-BUSH, SANTA BARBARA.
To those who prefer the immediate ocean air to that air as modified by such valleys as the San Gabriel and the Santa Ana, the coast offers a variety of choice in different combinations of sea and mountain climate all along the southern sunny exposure from Santa Barbara to San Diego. In Santa Barbara County the Santa Inez range of mountains runs westward to meet the Pacific at Point Conception. South of this noble range are a number of little valleys opening to the sea, and in one of these, with a harbor and sloping upland and cañon of its own, lies Santa Barbara, looking southward towards the sunny islands of Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz. Above it is the Mission Cañon, at the entrance of which is the best-preserved of the old Franciscan missions. There is a superb drive eastward along the long and curving sea-beach of four miles to the cañon of Monticito, which is rather a series of nooks and terraces, of lovely places and gardens, of plantations of oranges and figs, rising up to the base of the gray mountains. The long line of the Santa Inez suggests the promontory of Sorrento, and a view from the opposite rocky point, which encloses the harbor on the west, by the help of cypresses which look like stone-pines, recalls many an Italian coast scene, and in situation the Bay of Naples. The whole aspect is foreign, enchanting, and the semi-tropical fruits and vines and flowers, with a golden atmosphere poured over all, irresistibly take the mind to scenes of Italian romance. There is still a little Spanish flavor left in the town, in a few old houses, in names and families historic, and in the life without hurry or apprehension. There is a delightful commingling here of sea and mountain air, and in a hundred fertile nooks in the hills one in the most delicate health may be sheltered from every harsh wind. I think no one ever leaves Santa Barbara without a desire to return to it.
Farther down the coast, only eighteen miles from Los Angeles, and a sort of Coney Island resort of that thriving city, is Santa Monica. Its hotel stands on a high bluff in a lovely bend of the coast. It is popular in summer as well as winter, as the number of cottages attest, and it was chosen by the directors of the National Soldiers' Home as the site of the Home on the Pacific coast. There the veterans, in a commodious building, dream away their lives most contentedly, and can fancy that they hear the distant thunder of guns in the pounding of the surf.
At about the same distance from Los Angeles, southward, above Point Vincent, is Redondo Beach, a new resort, which, from its natural beauty and extensive improvements, promises to be a delightful place of sojourn at any time of the year. The mountainous, embracing arms of the bay are exquisite in contour and color, and the beach is very fine. The hotel is perfectly comfortable—indeed, uncommonly attractive—and the extensive planting of trees, palms, and shrubs, and the cultivation of flowers, will change the place in a year or two into a scene of green and floral loveliness; in this region two years, such is the rapid growth, suffices to transform a desert into a park or garden. On the hills, at a little distance from the beach and pier, are the buildings of the Chautauqua, which holds a local summer session here. The Chautauqua people, the country over, seem to have, in selecting sightly and agreeable sites for their temples of education and amusement, as good judgment as the old monks had in planting their monasteries and missions.