Coalinga is full of California "boost;" our friend at the garage endeavored to enlist our sympathy in a movement to put the town on the state highway map—though I failed to see how we could be of much use to the enterprise.
"O, a word from tourists always helps, my brother. You can write a letter to the commissioners and tell them that we need the road and I reckon you'll know that we need it if you cross the hills to King City, as you propose. You'll find it something fierce, I can promise you; crooked, rough, stony, steep—lucky if you get through without a breakdown. There are one hundred and fifty fords in the sixty miles—no, I don't mean Ford automobiles, but creeks and rivers. It's shoot down a steep bank and jump out, and the sharp stones won't help your tires any, either. There are some grades, too, I want to tell you, but your rig looks as if they wouldn't worry her much. But when you get across, write a line to the Highway Commission and tell them something about it. So long! God bless you all."
When we waved our pious monitor adios and resumed our journey, it was still early morning. Of course we took the one hundred and fifty fords as a pleasant bit of exaggeration—we couldn't use a stronger term in view of our friend's evident piety; but we found, in slang parlance, that his statement was literally "no joke." We kept count of the times we crossed streams of running water and there were just one hundred and eighteen, and enough had dried up to make full measure for Mr. Smith's estimate, with a few to spare. And fearfully rough going it was—sharp plunges down steep banks, splashing through shallow streams, over stones and sand, and wild scrambles up the opposite side, an experience repeated every few minutes. At times the trail followed the bed of a stream or meandered closely along the shores, never getting very far away for the first dozen miles. Then we entered a hill range, barren at first, but gradually becoming wooded and overlooking long valleys studded with groups of oak and sycamore, with green vistas underneath. There was some strenuous work over the main mountain range, where the road was a narrow shelf cut in solid rock, with a precipice above and below. It had many heavy grades and sharp, dangerous turns; we all breathed a sigh of relief when we found ourselves in the valley on the western side of the range. Here were more streams to be forded—one of them a sizable river, which we crossed several times.
At last we came out into the King City highway and paused a moment to look ourselves over. The car was plastered with sand and mire from stem to stern; tires had suffered sadly from the rocky bottoms of the streams, and a front spring was broken. We agreed that crossing from Coalinga to King City was an experience one would hardly care to repeat except under stringent necessity.
The run to King City, after we had left the hills, was easy, enabling us to make up somewhat for the time consumed in crossing the range. A flock of more than two thousand sheep, driven along the highway, impeded our progress for half an hour and served to remind us of one of the great industries of the Salinas Valley.
A little foraging about King City provided a passable luncheon, which we ate under one of the mighty oaks at the foot of Jolon grade. In repassing this road, we were more than ever impressed with the beauty of the trees; thousands of ancient oaks dotted the landscape on either hand, some standing in solitary majesty and others clustered in picturesque groups. Dutton's Hotel at Jolon is nearly a century old, portions of it dating from mission days, and the proprietor is an enthusiast on historic California, having collected a goodly number of old-time relics in a little museum just across the road from the inn. Most of these came from San Antonio and the inn-keeper is anxiously looking forward to the day when he can return these treasures to the restored mission—though this, alas, does not appear to be in the near future.
It was to visit this ruin, which we missed on our northward trip, that we crossed the desert and mountains from Fresno to King City. It is one of the remotest and loneliest of the chain, the nearest railway station being King City, forty miles away. It stands six miles west of Jolon and we followed a rutty trail, deep with fine, yellow dust which rolled in strangling clouds from our wheels. But a lovely country on either hand glimmered through the dust haze, and in the pleasantest spot at the head of the wide valley stood the brown old ruin of San Antonio Mission. Behind it towered the high blue peaks of the Santa Lucias, the only barrier remaining between the valley and the sea, while the windowless, burnt-brick fachada fronted upon a wide meadowland, dotted with glorious oaks and gnarled old willows, stretching away to the dim outlines of the distant hills.
It was one of the most delightful sites we had yet seen, and the ruin had a certain melancholy picturesqueness peculiar to it alone. Like so many of its contemporaries, it suffered severely from earthquakes; about twenty-five years ago the roof fell and the shattered walls would soon have followed had not an enthusiastic lover of the old order of things—a gentleman of Spanish descent residing near Jolon—undertaken at his own time and expense to clear away the debris and protect the ruin against farther onslaught of the weather. A shingle roof was built covering the entire church and the original tiles were piled inside. The fachada, built of burnt brick, with three entrances and three belfries, is one of the most charming bits of mission architecture still remaining and is happily almost intact. Portions of the long cloisters are still standing—enough to furnish the motif for a complete restoration, and with adequate funds it would not be a difficult matter to restore San Antonio Mission Church to its former state.
