Albion seems the busiest place we have yet discovered. Its excuse for being is a great sawmill which employs several hundred men and which is supplied with logs by the river and a railroad extending twenty miles into the hills. The shriek of the saws, the hiss of steam, and the rumble of the locomotive, reached us before we descended the steep slope to the inlet upon which the mill is located, and gave us an intimation of the principal activity of the town. There is a pretty little bay into which the river flows and a substantial wharf from which the finished lumber is shipped by schooner. In crossing the river we passed directly through the sawmill yards and had a near view of its giant band-saws traveling through the mighty logs at an astonishing rate.
Two or three miles beyond Albion we came to Navarro, which we found a “deserted village,” indeed, for not a human being could be found about the few gray, weatherbeaten shacks to give us the information we desired about the road. A little farther on, however, a friendly signboard made it clear that this was the point where the hotel clerk had advised us to turn inland. The coast road had been growing continually more wretched and the deep canyon before us did not look very inviting. Besides, it was getting late and to go on to Greenwood would bring us to Cloverdale after dark. We therefore bade a reluctant farewell to the glorious ocean—it seemed as if we could never tire of it—and struck the sandy trail that led sharply into a jungle of small trees and shrubbery. The deep sand and the apparent disuse of the road caused us some apprehension. The road, however, gradually improved as it descended to the Navarro River, passing several poor-looking fruit ranches on the way.
The grade out of the canyon is one of the longest and heaviest that we covered during our entire tour. It has few turns, climbing the canyon side in a straight slope several miles long, at places the rise exceeding twenty-five per cent. It seemed as if it would never end and we grew very apprehensive of our gasoline supply, which we expected to replenish at Greenwood, now eliminated from our route. I confidently looked for the engine to stall for lack of fuel on some of these appalling grades, and whiled the time in imagining what course we should pursue if this happened. I did not reach any satisfactory conclusion, nor have I yet, for we did not meet another car on this road and the nearest gas station was twenty miles away. But it didn’t happen and we replenished our supply at one of the little towns. There were three or four villages on the fifty-mile stretch between the coast and Cloverdale, all of them rather dilapidated and forlorn, though there was much activity at Boonville, where a huge sawmill was in operation. None of the numerous ranches along the road looked very prosperous and perhaps half of the houses were deserted and falling into ruin. This, we were told, did not necessarily mean that the owner had starved out. A great many of them, after “proving up” their claims, had sold out to the large ranchers, who were buying immense tracts in this country.
There was much pretty scenery along the way, rich with autumnal colorings which we might have admired more had we been more comfortable ourselves. But the road was rough and dusty and the wind had risen to a perfect gale which chilled us for all our wraps and blankets. A car was ahead of us for the last several miles and almost strangled us with dust clouds so dense that even trying to pass was out of the question.
We rejoiced with exceeding joy when eight miles from Cloverdale we came into the new state highway, smooth and dust-free. Our chance friend at Crater Lake Lodge had especially admonished us to stop at McCray’s when we reached Cloverdale, and had noted on our maps, “Very comfortable country inn two miles out of Cloverdale.” So we kept a sharp lookout, for a “very comfortable inn” seemed about the acme of our earthly desires at that particular time. We had no difficulty in finding our proposed haven, for a huge, rambling frame building bearing the legend, “McCray’s,” loomed up directly by the roadside and we were received more like expected guests of the family than commercial patrons.
There was a decided atmosphere of home about the rambling old place—originally the McCray Homestead—and one very quickly falls in with the mood of good fellowship that rules everybody connected with the inn. We were ushered into the family sitting-room with its roaring, open fireplace—welcome, indeed, after our ride in the piercing wind—and were cordially greeted by Father McCray, a six-foot-two giant whom the younger generation designated as “Pap.” He introduced us to the other guests, mainly members and close friends of the family, for the season was over, though the inn is kept open the year round. They all proved very pleasant, jovial people and we soon learned how very different are the relations between the McCray’s and their guests from those between the ordinary hotel and its patrons. The inn, we learned, is conducted on quite an extensive scale during the summer, when two hundred people can be entertained in the main building and adjacent cottages. There is a large, well-appointed club-house just across the road, where the guests may pursue dancing and other amusements to their hearts’ content, and there is usually enough going on to thoroughly dispel ennui on part of anyone.
But the crowning feature of McCray’s is the meal service; verily, it brought back recollections of mother at her best in boyhood days on the farm. The delicious conserves, never found in any mere hotel, are made from California fruit right on the premises and nearly everything used is grown on the farm under Pap’s watchful supervision. A few words with Pap are all that is necessary to convince you that no detail of service or entertainment escapes him and that he has more pride in earning the approval of his guests than a mere desire to get their money. We liked McCrays of all degrees and already have plans for a trip in that vicinity again, with the inn as one of our stopping-places. Our only suggestion for improvement is that a locked garage will make the average motorist feel easier than the open shed in which our car was stored during our visit.
The next morning we were away on an easy run to the metropolis through the famous Santa Rosa Valley, with its endless vineyards now laden with their purple harvest. Everywhere were signs of activity on part of the vineyard people and we met many loaded wagons and motor trucks carrying the grapes to the numerous wineries in this vicinity. But I will not write in detail of our last day’s run, since I have covered this country fully in my previous book, “On Sunset Highways.” We reached San Francisco in the early afternoon, having been absent from the golden gate city for nearly a month and our strenuous but delightful and inspiring pilgrimage through the mighty hills and lovely vales of Northern California and the Oregon country was at an end.