When Anza got up on the morning his first thought was probably, “What’s for
breakfast?” At least, that was mine.
Answering the Anza’s question from the vantage point of 238 years late is not
too easy. Chocolate? Tortillas? Local produce?
Those details are not often recorded in the journals of voyages. Only
people from, the gastrophillic Bay Area would document such trivia. My choices this morning are endless –
Denny’s, Mimi’s Café, Five Guys, Chipotle, Subway, MacDonald’s, Famous Dave’s,
Rocket Subs, free breakfasts at any of a
dozen or more hotels in this mall area of Yuma (I stayed at a Best Western but
am foregoing another free motel breakfast).
Famous Dave’s ribs were good for dinner last night, but pulled pork
sandwiches are not my choice for breakfast.
I am at Starbucks. I am marveling at their new one-cup coffee maker
which comes with a 40 page instruction book, and a supplemental “trouble
shooting” guide. I didn’t check to see
if they have a 1-800 support line to a caffeine-support desk in India.
Whether Anza had a chocolateer with him on the expedition, I
am not sure. But the morning of his
crossing the river the local Indians “invited all members of the expedition to
eat, giving them an abundance of beans, calabashes, maize, wheat and other
grains which are used by them, and so many watermelons we estimated that thee must
have been more than three thousand,” Anza wrote in his diary.
When I went to the Yuma crossing this morning I met with no
such luck. The Yuma crossing and Ft. Yuma Quartermaster site are now combined
on the site of the former Quartermasters fort, which later was a customs
collectors residence then used by the US Bureau of Reclamation as they worked
to control the Colorado River and extract water for the use of local farmers
around Yuma. They were going to take water from an existing canal on the other
side of the river and send it to Arizona. I don’t know if this was an
engineering or political necessity, but it was an engineering problem. An aqueduct suspended over the river would be
impractical because at that time, in the early years of the 20th Century
the Colorado was unpredictable. So the
decide to build a tunnel under the river and make a “reverse siphon” to send
water to Arizona.
It was, and is, an engineering marvel. Haven’t I heard of a similar plan somewhere else
in California?
Anza’s expedition did not cross the River at Yuma. Their
actual route dropped south into Baja California after they were at Yuma. Their campsite is now located on the California
side of the river in a former mission site on an Indian reservation. The exact location is not known, but I photographed
the sign to the local casino simply to document the place as now belonging to a
Native tribe.
The route I followed was a few miles northwest of Anza’s
route as he remained south of the River, and my route, on CA 98, was north of
the river. He crossed the river about
250 miles downriver from Yuma then head
north along the San Felipe arroyo and his route intersected with the current Ca
78 just south of the Salton Sea. My own
route north on CA 86 was through some of finest sand dunes I have seen – they rival
the dunes at Pismo Beach and the dunes on the Sahara Desert. Their nearness to civilization is apparent as
the dust created by the large number of OHV enthusiast shrouds the whole valley
in a haze. The wind from the southeast
blows the sand up against the mountains in the distance giving the impression that
crops were being watered. Anza’s route north from Mexico intersects with IS8
near the town of Westmorland, and there is a marker at the rest stop
there. As the route continues north
following the San Felipe wash, it intersects highway CA78/86. From there, the driving
route follows the road through the Ana-Borrego desert while his actual path follows
along the San Sebastian march at the base of the mountains on the south side of
the valley.
There are locations in the Anza-Borrego State Park where the
actual route is still visible, but these are not accessible except by 4-wheel
drive vehicle. My little front-wheel drive Chevy would to make it – I nearly
got caught in the sand long the side of the road on the way to the State Park headquarters, but luckily I had just enough traction to get
back on the pavement. As Anza passed through the desert floor towards the
imposing ranges of mountains to the north and west the choice of which gap to
go through would have been tough. But Anza
had been in the area before, and his trusty Indian guide, Sebastian Tarabel,
would make the choice of Coyote Canyon.
Following Coyote canyon WNW, they entered a broad mountain valet,
about 4500 feet above sea level, which is now known as Anza Valley, the site of
the community of Anza. As I drove into
the town I saw a familiar site –Anza Trail Historic Route. I whipped a quick
left off the highway, CA391, and drove short distance to another sign
suggesting that I was on the historic route.
I continued. Soon a sign said “pavement ends” – not something I was
anxious to see. But the dirt road was excellent for several miles. I even
noticed at some point a street sign that said “Bautista Avenue.” That gave me a little confidence. I rattled along, raising dust, passing one
other car going the opposite direction and passing a sign that said “Indian
Reservation” – I forget which one. The
road narrowed, the shoulders looked very soft, I remembered nearly getting
stuck a couple of hours earlier, and the road narrowed some more.
My hope was that the dirt road would meet up with CA74 – the
Pines to Palms highway, which leads to Hemet where I intended to, spend the
night. But I lost my nerve, and turned
around with about half a dozens forwards and reverses, and retraced my steps to
the highway. As I drove further toward the
town of Anza I saw another sign – “Anza” and a blur. I turned around and the
sign told me to turn right – so I did.
The sign was directing me, it turned out, to an information panel on the
public library which is located on the campus of one of the schools in town. I finally
got to the school, saw another sign directing me to the library, and noted that
the rather intimidating gate to the campus was closed and a chain with multiple
padlocks was in place. So I took a
couple of pictures to document the situation, headed back to the highway and
ultimately connected with CA74 and arrived in Hemet just as it got dark,
I finally made it to Hemet
after a long day of false turns, misleading directions, dead ends, dirt roads,
border patrol road blocks, mountain roads, photo ops, and, finally, no more
room at three Inns in Hemet. I've
finally landed in a Motel 6 which is only modestly better than sleeping in my
car.
Basically the day made me
realize what a remarkable fellow Juan Bautista de Anza was. The first few days
- at least to the area of the San Xavier del Bac mission, was a cakewalk - he
had lived in that area most of his life, there was a sizable Spanish and
Mexican population in the area, and his fellow travelers were fresh on their
adventure.
That feeling of "a new
adventure and life" and optimism for the future must have been sorely
tried over the next several weeks as they crossed the Colorado River, several
varieties of desert, and a pretty rugged mountain range. So far the
visions of "an abundance of great oaks, live oaks, and pines, and consequently
plenty of pine nuts and acorns" as Father Font described Mission San
Antonio de Padua, had not made themselves apparent. Rattlesnakes, tarantulas,
scarce water, no shade and long days trudging along the practically
non-existent trails must have tried men's (and women's and children's) souls. They 28 days it took to cross the desert and
mountains between Yuma (Dec. 3) and Riverside (Dec.28) was a remarkable feat.
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