A Journey through California by Car - old shiny green Ford Escort
By Laura Ashley
So after rather long consideration and having missed a couple of weekend when we seriously thought about going to Los Angeles we finally decided to fulfill our desire and go to travel around California a little. It was November 2001. We also had a certain purpose in mind: to look at some selected towns more closely in order to choose some nice place to live without freeways and long commute. Said — done, and we put some dry supplies and a couple of cloth items in the trunk and went off.
The landscape from San Diego to Oceanside was more or less familiar to us. We went through Encinitas and Carlsbad: we’ve already been to both towns and used to visit Encinitas quite often. So in about three of hours we approached to the most famous and magnificent, the largest city in California: Los Angeles or how it is usually called L.A. Remember the film To live and Die in L.A.? So this is the case.
Los Angeles Unvisited
Unfortunately we didn’t have enough either time or means to look around properly and to visit local sightseeing. Strange but there’s nothing much to see. Among the most famous places of interest one can mention Disneyland and Universal Studios, Hollywood and Beverly Hills. For the people of more refined taste there are Huntington museum and Self-Realization Fellowship headquarters. Not to mention a number of other local attractions: numerous museums, symphony orchestras, famous areas, etc., etc. As you see you can easily spend a whole day there without getting much bored. On the other hand one of the modern Hollywood actors said that “you can get more impressions sitting in your apartment in New York than for a whole day going sightseeing in L.A.” Voilŕ! But it is true: Los Angeles somehow lacks grandeur. You feel some emptiness. Yes, it specializes in show business and movies but all this becomes tiresome very quickly unless it is your profession. Like Las Vegas it dazzles you at the beginning but then very quickly becomes ordinary.
But now to the point what L.A. really is. The fact is that it looks very much like other big Californian city, San Diego for instance. The same traffic jams every day, the same clover bridges, the same net of freeways. The same structure: the city consists of a number of communities the status of which is somehow in between L. A. and separate place. Indeed how can you consider Pasadena or Santa Monica: a part of Los Angeles or a separate community (town). It is shown on the maps. I really don’t know. Sometimes these communities have separate authorities. Probably the city is woven of such communities and the borders between them became blurry.
The residential streets in Los Angeles are the same as in all the other Californian cities and towns: one storey separate houses. Occasionally you can see condominiums: two or three storeys apartment building but they are not very popular. People here like separate family houses. Also the prices of the construction are involved. Business streets are the same a in San Diego: shops, boutiques, restaurants and so on.
We’ve been got into a traffic jam there that lasted almost for an hour. The road was quite narrow two: three lanes. We stopped once at the gas station to fill the tank. But since there was nothing really to do for us there we went straight forward to Ventura.
Ventura
Ventura was the first night stop. After a short discussion we decided to stay in the motel Vagabond Inn as we liked the name of the place. As we found out later all the motels of this name are exactly alike. The rooms in different motels look like twins. After a while it becomes a little depressing. The same thing is with MacDonald’s: all are very much alike, like two peas, the only difference is the degree of cleanness of a place. Though it is franchise the prices oscillate in different places and Ventura is one of the expensive towns. What do you want: Sough California and on the sea. Close to the mountains. Many retired people live here.
In the evening we went to the restaurant and ordered a tuna sandwich. That was tasty but they are not always like that. One of the amazing things about American restaurant is that almost the whole menu consists of meat dishes. An what if you don’t like meat, especially of restaurant cooking? Tea was not good at all.
On the next day we visited the mission—nothing much, just the church and a very small yard with a fountain. But it only cost $ 1. In the morning we went to the beach that is shamefully close to the freeway and the beach itself looked rather gloomy: sand but not very clean and ugly buildings at the background. There was a big pier there.
Santa Barbara
We stopped in this town for a few minutes: wanted to see the mission. The one that is there is famous or its beauty and therefore is called “the Queen of the Mission”. I would not give it such a title though it was not bad. I was disappointed with a garden: there was nothing much there to see: a few crypts and grass. Paved paths. I expected lots of trees and flowers and they were not there. But inside the church there was an interesting chalice with water: looked like a sphere. You have to touch it in order to understand that it is just a reflection effect since the inside surface of the chalice is covered with some shiny glittering substance. The altar was decorated in Halloween style: pumpkins and dry leaves and flowers. This mission is a big tourist attraction since many people heard about Santa Barbara, mostly due to the famous TV-series. Anyway it is especially popular with foreigners.
Yet, there was something really peculiar there: restrooms. I haven’t seen anything like that before: instead of doors there were curtains hanging at each stall. You can move the curtain and it looks so interesting.
Unfortunately we did not have enough time to look properly at the town and had to be satisfied with what we had seen from the car. Driving along the streets was quite nice there but the whole town looks like a big La Jolla (a fashionable community in San Diego where most expensive shops, restaurants, etc. are situated, not necessarily of highest quality though).
We made a short stop there for a little picnic and ate crudities: Parisian toasts. When we just arrived there we stopped for the beach and I must admit that in was much nicer than Ventura beach. First of all there is no freeway that close. Then there is a row of palms and it improves the landscape much. The sea itself was covered with yacht boats. Before the sand you have to pass the patch of grass. Not bad at all.
When we left Santa Barbara we entered the most picturesque part of our trip: the road first went along the sea than turned into mountains and became wiggle like a snake. The landscape became pretty. The roads in that country are so narrow that you cannot pass there until now and then there are two-lanes parts where you can pass. Sometimes a line of cars follow a slow truck and on the passing area they try to pass it. Those who failed wait for the next passing area. There are also turn-outs but truck rarely use them.
The most picturesque landscape we saw were we were driving through the hills before Santa Ynez. I saw a valley in the mountains with trees and soon a big lake appeared. A very charming country it was.
Santa Ynez itself is hardly worth describing. Imagine a small but very rich town that consists of not more than 40 houses and two crossing business streets. I was surprised to find a post office there. Anyway there was nothing much there to do. One can feel that the town is very rich and see that it is very small. In fact we walked along one of the “main” street and it took 10 minutes. What people do there for a living I don’t know. Partly it may be agricultural activity, partly running a business. I don’t think there are many tourists visiting though.
In spite of the name of Santa Ines the mission that bears this name is not situated in Santa Ynez. It is in Solvang, another artificial town where people in cafes are dressed in Dutch costumes. That’s what I heard, I didn’t see for myself. The mission is very small and is under construction. But they invest money in it and that is good. Soon it’ll be quite ready for visitors. It has a garden with good potential and an interesting museum, rather small.
Santa Maria is a typical Californian town with all the attributes that characterize American towns: lots of car sales lots, small shopping centers, gas stations. Residential areas are separate from business streets. In general not better and not worse than all the other towns.
San Luis Obispo
The same can’t be said about San Luis Obispo because this town as a mania of grandeur. It is obviously a big tourist attraction like you can say from the fact that half of the curbs are lines with parking meters. The other half is always taken, as one can easily suppose by locals. We arrived there at night ad stayed at Vagabond Inn again and it was quite luxurious a motel compared to others where we shall have stayed. We visited a mission there and it was very nice. A charming garden with vines blending with a monastery type yard where you can see rustic wooden picnic tables with benches and a historic cooking area with grill. There is a fountain there too. In the garden one can see a baking oven for bread. Some of the trees actually bore fruit: oranges and pomegranates. The vines were heavy with black grapes. To my mind one of the most interesting missions.
From San Luis to Merced
The next point of our long trip was Merced. It meant that we should have to abandon the picturesque coast line and drive inland. The landscape from San Luis to Merced changes immensely. You abandon the coastline and go into Imperial Valley with its agricultural activities. Hills and mountains suddenly became replaced by fields and they produce quite a different impression: boring. Sometimes you see vineries and nut orchards but in general it is just a vast flat plane with some plants or just plain earth. The grass on the occasional hills became yellow and now and ten you see cattle on the pastures. For some moments the freeways became wide and multilane again: we were passing through Fresno. Even the cityscape changes too: from industrial to agricultural: often all you see is warehouses, barns and fields and they go on miles. The highway roads are narrow but it was not such a bad drive. The only thing that spoilt a pleasure was that the weather became stormy, it sprinkled and the sky was covered with clouds. We reached Merced when it was getting dark.
After agricultural towns you understand that coast towns were not so bad after all even if they lacked excitement.
From Merced to Santa Cruz and Back
At Merced we stopped at Vagabond Inn. Now it is probably the time to tell you why we put up at this hotel: it was not because we particularly liked it, after all they are all more or less alike. No, it was because in Ventura we learnt that if you spend nine nights at Vagabond Inn the tenth night you can be their guest for nothing. And we thought: and why not. The price of Vagabond in Merced was lower than in other places but the number of commodities became less but it was just for one night anyway. The only thing that really irritated me was the bad nozzle on the shower. I like calm soft water jet and they were either too prickly or too misty. But one can deal with it. The best shower was in San Luis where you can regulate the jet by turning the nozzle and make it mild or hard, flaring or straight.
We drove through streets of Merced and one of them had pretty old-fashioned lamps: it looked very unusual and charming. But the first impression of this town was not too good. Partly due to the bad weather: it sprinkled when we came out to walk a little. Very few pedestrian on the streets and lots of cars. But this is quite typical for California towns. Even in San Diego there are street where you can hardly see any people walking by foot. Vast majority of population use cars. But Merced is quite a small town and still… Well, the size of a town does not really matter, Americans reached the point where the car really became a necessity. Only very often they use it no matter how far they have to go: even to the nearest drug store.
Mariposa
The next day was Halloween and it meant that everything would be closed so we had to contrive something to do. It never gave us much difficulty to find something. The first thing we decided to do is to go to Mariposa, a small town at the foot of the mountains of Sierra Nevada. The road there laid through a picturesque hills. Not many trees. Now and then you can see cattle on the pastures. The place was covered with yellow grass with pieces of wood and rocks. They say that such rocky places are famous for rattlesnakes. We haven’t seen any rattlesnakes but we saw mistletoe, a parasitic plant that grows high on trees (California black oak tree), in fact it’s hard to see: it looks very much like a part of foliage but has a slightly different colour.
As for Mariposa itself it reminds much of Santa Ynez very much: very small and rich community. Everything is called “Sierra” here, just like in Weimar where all boutiques were called “Weimar so and so”. Most places there were closed too. We went to a café there to drink a cup of coffee and then decided to go to Santa Cruz since it is considered to be a nice town.
So after that we went there and it was quite a long trip. We have been stuck one in a traffic jam but it was not too bad. The small intersection caused all the problems and the road was very narrow. We passed through Gilroy, the garlic capital of the world and the fields in the rustic part of the town indeed smelled garlic. The city part of Gilroy is just all the other towns and cities. We didn’t stop there and soon went right to the place of our destination, Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz is a nice town right on the coast but different from South California it is situated in its northern part. The streets were deserted there too and it gave me a weird sensation. I think the first time that struck me to see empty street was in Weimar: just cars and no people. Here was the same thing. We drove through some streets, passed downtown area. One of the streets there looked like European street, in fact it would look like a street in a German town save for waving American flag. We even went to the university campus: it is situated in the mountains. You can look down some hill and see the whole town. The campus is quite big and little cottages are scattered in the hills. The place was very close to the wood, one can say it is in the wood and we saw a couple of deer that didn’t seem to be afraid of us at all.
We went to the sea there and watched surfers: they bay was famous for this kind of activity. In spite of the cold and windy weather there were quite a few surfers there. In fact it was one of the best days for them according to broadcast: the waves were of the right heights and speed, something like that. Still it was cold but of course they didn’t care for such minor details since they all wore a diving suit.
The houses at the coast line were quite nice: they looked rich but no fences and guards. It means that people there are reasonably rich, if you can say so. In San Diego and Carlsbad we passed the areas which were occupied by nobody but filthy rich with locked fences. The less rich use electronic alarm. Once we even saw a private street where even pedestrians were forbidden.
Unfortunately we didn’t have much time to spend and it looked like it would be interesting to spend a day there. The last of our “adventures” in Santa Cruz was the following: we wanted to buy a town newspaper, Santa Cruz Sentinel. Went to one gas station: nothing. Checked a liquor store and a couple of other gas stations: nothing. Obviously all the copies had been sold. On the first gas station there was a very nice manager. He said that he was going to put this station back to work and he was so good that he ran to the nearest station to check the newspaper for us. He was going to run to another but we stopped him and told him we’d already been there. A very nice guy indeed he was. It is such an immense pleasure to meet people like him even for a few seconds.
Quite the opposite type of person we met the same day at Gilroy. First place we checked was a spooky hole run by Indians. Another one was run by an Indian too, and the place was still quite expensive. These jerks take advantage of the dark but had no choice. The desk clerk there was not very courteous. What a difference from the guy from a gas station in Santa Cruz. At least when you stop in place like that you know that you are not going to stop there again.
The next day we went back to Merced and did our business there. From that place we took a road to Bakersfield where we made a stop for a night, another vagabond. In the evening visited some friends and that was all. Though wait, that was not all. After leaving the friends’ house we’ve been lost for some time. And it is very easy to get lost in American town since all streets look exactly the same. We made a wrong turn and 7 minutes passed before we realized that we were lost. Certainly we found the road easily but still it illustrate how easy one can get lost in American town especially when it is dark and it is hard to see signs. So be alert all the time and follow directions on your way back too. Check the name of the streets at every turn. But it was quite exciting this time. For example due to that mistake we went to VONS and bought a few things.
From Bakersfield we decided to take a roundabout way to San Diego to avoid Los Angeles. So we drove again rustic narrow roads in the fields and farms. On the way to Lancaster we saw a rainbow there and it was a beautiful sight. Both ends touched the ground and it was quite small and low. You could see the whole of it and it moved along with us. The weather was a mixture of sprinkling and sun: just the one that is required to make a rainbow. We passed Palmdale and saw sandstorms there and we saw people in the streets there right in the cloud of sandstorm. A couple of times we’ve been caught in those clouds too and it became so dusty around the car that you could hardly see through the cloud. It could be frightening if the cloud was thicker. But in spite of all we did our trip quite successfully. Never been stuck in a traffic jam. We passed San Bernardino and stopped there to eat. Restaurant meal became so boring by that time that we were glad to go home and eat some normal food at last. In two hours we went to San Diego.
December 2001