Do You Know the Way to San Jose? It’s North of Cows

I had no time to rest up from my Sierra adventure before my wife and I set out by car for San Jose.

As lively and progressive a city as it may be, it is not a place one would choose for a holiday, like San Francisco.

Obviously, I had a reason for going there. I was to give a talk at a meeting in the De Anza Hotel.

We took Interstate 5. There is no quicker escape from the overcrowding of Los Angeles than a drive up 5. It runs straight up through the San Joaquin Valley, bypassing such unappreciated jewels of civilization as Buttonwillow, Wasco, Lost Hills and Pond, my wife’s birthplace.

Following the west side of the valley, close to the coastal mountains, it passes oil fields, grain fields, cotton fields, fields of green and pastureland. Populated corners are scarce. The speed limit is 65 m.p.h., and some vehicles actually stay within it.

East of Coalinga, we stopped at the famous Harris Ranch for lunch. As the ranch is celebrated for its beef, we had hamburgers. They were indeed succulent and savory.

Driving on, we soon came to the notorious Harris Ranch stockyard. The stench preceded it. In an enormous enclosure stood thousands of cows. Their pen must have run half a mile along the highway. They stood in clusters, motionless. They had no shade. It looked like the Valhalla of boredom. They awaited their doom in the slaughterhouse. Soon enough they would all be steaks and hamburgers.

We were glad we had already had our lunch.

West of Los Banos we caught California 182 to Gilroy, passing through low mountains above the pretty San Luis Reservoir. Its blue waters seemed to deny the drought.

As we entered San Jose, we began to feel at home. It was about 5 p.m., and the freeway into town looked like Interstate 405 on any day at 5 o’clock. Suddenly it thinned out, though, and we found the De Anza Hotel without difficulty.

The De Anza stood empty for several years but was recently restored in Art Deco style. Because it is a historical monument, the owners had not been allowed to alter the facade. As a stranger commented in the elevator, “From in front it looks like a failed YMCA.”

But the interior was smart and nostalgic for anyone who had lived when Art Deco was the rage. After the lunch at which I spoke we set out for Monterey, meaning to spend the night there and have dinner at Cannery Row.

Somehow we just kept driving through Monterey and wound up in Carmel, where we stopped at the Village Inn, a motel at the top of Ocean Avenue, the main street along which Carmel’s quaint shops, restaurants, delis, art stores and ice cream parlors are gathered.

Carmel has been called a candy-ass town--that is a town so deliberately quaint as to provoke revulsion. Half the shops do seem to feature T-shirts promoting Carmel or the Monterey Peninsula. But in Bakersfield, of course, one can buy a T-shirt that says “London, Paris, Rome, Bakersfield.” In fact, my wife has two. Of course, Clint Eastwood’s tenure as mayor has given Carmel a he-man mystique that it lacked.

There is no night life in Carmel--or at least none that I could see--so we had Swedish meatballs at a restaurant called Scandia and retired early to read.

From Carmel we took County Highway G16 to connect with Greenfield at U.S. 101. It is a two-lane highway that runs 46 miles through the lovely Carmel Valley. We had never taken it before. It restored our faith in the rustic beauty of our state. The road curves past small ranch houses covered with vines and flowers; now and then it runs beside a rippling stream; horses stand in corrals; we passed a school, a firehouse, a village. No sign of a traffic light or a shopping mall. We overtook one car on the entire road.

While California 1 is the more scenic route, along the coast, we took 101 because it is faster, and my wife wanted to get home to feed her cats. In its way, 101 is as beautiful and as typically Californian as Highway 1. It runs through golden foothills, pastures, wooded slopes and clean little cities. It is dotted with the dilapidated barns that are so typical of Central California.

I have always loved the rows and clumps of eucalyptus, but they seem to be dying, perhaps of some blight. I was heartened, though, by the green growth at the bottom of many trees.

I had thought of stopping at the Santa Barbara Biltmore for lunch, but we missed the turnoff, and, guided by hunger, finally ate outdoors at a roadside deli in Carpinteria.

The cats were OK.