Day 5 - San Luis Obispo to Mission San Antonio de Padua

 You can see the pictures I took on this leg of the trip, or you can trace the route by seeing them on this map.

My first stop was the San Luis Mission where Anza and his followers wee greeted with a nice celebration.  These days people in the mission neighborhood in San Luis seem to think Anza is coming through every evening.  There is a constant celebration there. But I guess that is what it is like at Cal Poly these days.  One of the things I really liked at the museum was an installation of five mission bells, three in the front and two along the side, named after the first five missions in California: Carlos, Antonio, Luis, Diego, and Gabriel. Each play a different note – it is all explained on the plaque on the wall by the door that I took a picture of.

Anza visited all of those missions on his 1775-76 trek. While most of the expedition stayed at Mission San Gabriel, where they arrived on Jan 4, Anza and twenty soldiers accompanied Commander Rivera from Monterey to San Diego to help quell an Indian uprising that was occurring there. The Indians had killed two priests and several other people and Anza and Rivers wee “to collaborate in punishing the Indian rebels should it be necessary, and to take the field against the gentile Indians who made the attack on the Mission San Diego.  Ana and Font, and their soldiers, returned to San Gabriel on February 12 and after a few days of R&R they left San Gabriel on Feb. 21 and arrived in San Luis Obispo on March 2.

Their next stop is uncertain. There is no entry in Font’s diary for March 3 – but after their greeting when they arrived at the mission they may have had to rest a day from over indulging in aguardiente during the celebrations.  The route from San Luis to their stop along the railroad tracks in Atascadero on Mar. 5 is in doubt. One stop is only a short distance from them mission at the foot of the Cuesta grade and the mouth of Cuesta canyon.  That is where the old sage route over the Cuesta grade started. That road is still used by hikers and bicyclists to by pass the very steep freeway over the 1500 ft. Cuesta summit.

With a little (actually a lot) of searching involving diving over the Cuesta Grade and back, then to Morro B ay and back, and finally to the little park – which was about across the street where I had spent the night.

The park was also the site of the animal shelter. I encountered a woman who was there with her two children – one a toddler and the other a babe in arms. I told her that this might have been the Anza camp site and asked her if she knew who Anza was. She did not, so I told her, and said that seeing her their with her children reminded me of the fact that if the Anza expedition stopped there there would have been mothers with children, some of whom were about the same age as the youngster she had wrapped up in her reboso.  I asked if I could take her picture, and she said that she would rather I would not – so I didn’t.

I then headed back up the Cuesta grade and on the other side took the road to Santa Margarita.  Unfortunately, the driving guide for that area was a bi vague, and there wee no places with monuments of recognitions of the passing expedition. Occasionally as I drove on the back roads from Santa Margarita to Atascadero, Templeton, and Paso Robles I would see an “Anza Trail Historical Route” sign, but their placement seemed a bit haphazard.  The Brown edition of Font’s Diary has pretty specific identification for each of the stops along the route and perhaps by referring to those descriptions it would be possible to more closely approximate the Anza route.

But it is pretty evident that the expedition followed two routes – geographically and historically defined by the Salinas River, and currently and developmentally defined by the railroad tracks.  The amount of rural development along the driving route is pretty amazing – vineyards about, large developments, and gated communities abound. One that was most fantastically elaborate looked like the combination of a Chinese monastery guide, a mission church entrance, and something out of a fantasy computer game. You can safely retire to your 4000 square foot retirement home there for a couple a million bucks, and enjoy the cultural benefits of Templeton just a short drive away.

I followed the driving guide along the River Rd. to Paso Robles, and then took CA 41 and County Road G14 toward Lake Nacimiento.  Lake Nacimiento is a reservoir behind a large earthen dam.  The water level looked pretty low, and the information I Googled indicated that the Lake is filled only to 5% of capacity.  There are a number of nice homes on the hills surrounding the lake. I noticed a long, white object on the hillside across the lake – maybe five miles away – and thought it was a pipeline. The road went right past there and it turned out to be a white rail face.  IT was at least half a mile long built right o the edge of the hill overlook the road that was cut through. The owner of that property must want to make sure that you knew it was his.  Made me think of the title that would be a great country song, or a refrain from a song titled “Fences.” The line is “Nothin’ says its mine like my white rail fence.” Not barbed wire in any of the dozens of varieties that have been produced, not like a homespun-looking split rail fence, not as hokey are tires or wheel rimes, nor as permanent as a stone wall, and not as traditional as a white picket fence.  That white rail fence made the “Beware of dog” sign prominently posted o the front gate rather redundant.  And the ’57 Chevy parked in front of the garage was a nice touch – “we’re just folks with an old Chevy” – that had probably been restored to the tune of $50,000.

Another hour on G14 brought me to my last stop of this trip – Mission San Antonio de Padua.  Located on the grounds of Fort Hunter-Liggett it is my favorite of the California Missions. Manly because it still stands where it was built, and the land around it has not been developed.  The last Franciscan priest left the church ten years ago and the Parish is trying to survive.  There are 33 families who worship there, some driving an hour through the Fort Gate to the church for Mass.  The church is about 20 mils from Highway 101 in King City and Anza arrived there on March 6

The expedition was greeted there with great rejoicing by the Mallorcan priests who had come there from Mission San Carlos in Monterey, Font notes with approval that the priests made presents of a pig to the soldiers and the muleteers, and the priests “also brought forth a great deal of lard that was shared among the people who had not tasted any in a long time.”

Because the priests there were from Mission San Carlos, Anza and his party must have been told that they we only a week away from their primary destination – Monterey.  My next stop, hover, after gassing up in King City, was Oakland.  The exploration of the remaining portion of the Anza Trail, which goes into San Francisco to Fort Point, then back around the Bay to the Sacramento River delta, then back to Monterey, will have to wait until another time.

Day 4 - Camarillo to San Luis Obispo

I only took a few pictures  today because most of the actual sites where the expedition stopped are not identified, or are on private land or otherwise inaccessible. The driving guide mostly talks about things that are near the route of the expedition, but have no real relationship to Anza or the people who came with him.  The route of my travel can be seen on a map.

In reading the day by day description in the Brown translation of Font’s journal it does appear that they travelled over the Cahuenga Pass as they left the LA basin area and headed north.  The camped at the south end of Cahuenga Pass on February 21 which was day 71 of their march. About 75 years later that would be the site of the defeat of the Californio militia under the command of Andres Pico by Stephen Kearney’s troops.  That led to the Treaty of Cahuenga (derisively referred to on occasion as the “Capitulation of Cahuenga”) which was signed by John Fremont because the Californios would not rust Kearney to live up to his word if he signed the document. The document, which guaranteed good treatment of both sides, was written in Spanish and English by Jose Antonio Carrillo.  That tradition, of writing formal documents on both languages, was maintained in the California Constitution until the document was re-written in about 1878. (http://pacificvs.com/2009/08/18/a-brief-history-of-the-california-constitution accessed 3/17/2014 - an interesting blog on the subject of California, by the way).

But I digress. . .

My travels today took me up the coast along Highway 101 to Gaviota, where Ca 1 splits off and more closely follows the original Anza route.  There is little information in the driving guide I am using for specific places along Hwy 1 where the group camped, although there is more information in the Brown volume. The road meanders northwest through the green – this week – rolling hills and broad valleys to Vanderburgh AFB.  It is not too hard to imagine the expedition traveling over some of these hills, but in some places there are deep gorges cut by the creeks that drain to the west.  Finding the route to avoid those roadblocks must have been quite a challenge.  Anza may have followed a route that he had found on his previous trip in 1775, or he may have had some help from the locals.  Also, some missionaries may have come this way to establish La Purisima or San Antonio de Padua missions. I continued through the coastal cities of Los Osos (named by Father Garces as I recall because he saw a skinny bear there), Oceano, Arroyo Grande, and Pismo Beach. At Pismo Beach the route turns more northerly and heads through Price Canyon into San Luis Obispo.  This road avoids one of the most beautiful rods in California – Highway 101 as it rolls through the pass from San Luis Obispo to Pismo Beach. Having gone through that pass many times in the past 50 years it is always a joy when the blue – or sometimes gray – expanse of the Pacific Ocean pops into view. A sight not to be missed.

The drive along Hwy 1 between Gaviota and Pismo Beach was fascinating. Very large fields under cultivation much of the way – especially north of the Air Force Base.  There were lots of activities in those fields, some being harvested, some being irrigated, some being plant4ed, and some being prepared.  It is interesting to compare that with what I saw in the Midwest last summer which was mostly plant and wait, then harvest, then wait until the winter passes to start the cycle again.  Driving through the town of Guadalupe, past the cemetery where there are familiar names, I noticed the storied Far Western Steakhouse seemed to be closed.  The sign on the front was intact, but at 4:00 in the afternoon there were no cars, and the menu window by the front food – which described how many different kinds and sizes of steaks were available – was empty. I Googled the restaurant and saw a Yelp review that exclaimed “It’s closed” and expressed thanks for many years of good food.  I called the number and learned that the restaurant had moved to Orcutt. A little more convenient location, I suppose, but the consequences of the more remain to be seen - a least by me.

Anyway, I continued on to San Luis and will leave from there for home tomorrow with stops along the way.

Day 3 - Hemet to Camarillo

You can see the pictures I took today, or you can see a map showing where the pictures were taken. (HINT: Select the satellite view to get a sense of the route that the expedition was following when there were no developed highways)

The expedition’s route followed along the base of the San Jacinto mountain range in a northwesterly direction.  They traveled though some of the mountain valleys in Ramona – appropriately named after the Spanish heroine in Helen Hunt Jackson’s 19^th Century novel – which is usually considered as the tragic example of the society that Anza and those who followed him developed in California. Unlike Ramona’s family, and unlike other Spanish and Mexican immigrants into California, Anza appears to have had fairly cordial relationships with the Native Americans that he encountered in his voyages to California.  Perhaps it was Fray Font’s influence that helped the Anza expedition treat the natives they encountered with respect.

After leaving the Anza Valley area the route of the expedition closely followed the current Ramona Expressway and traveled up Berlusconi Pass and through a saddle in the mountains out onto the plain that is now Lake Perris.

Lake Perris is part of the California Water Project – the terminal end where water from Lake Oroville ends up if it is not used on the way down the San Joaquin Valley, through the Los Angeles Basin and on into Riverside County.  The earth and rock fill dam overlooks the valley floor where tens of thousands of residents must go to bed every night and think about the St. Francis Dam collapse in 1928 in Los Angeles, the greatest civil engineering catastrophe in U.S. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Francis_Dam, accessed 3/16/2014). In fact, according to the ranger in the museum at Lake Perris, some cracks were noticed in the dam several years ago, and there is currently an effort being made to shore up the dam.

There was supposed to be a marker at Lake Perris documenting the passage of the Anza Expedition through the area.  It was supposed to be at the south end of the Lake where the saddle in the hills, which can be seen in one of the photographs taken there, is located  I went t to that area an d wandered through the campground and could not find it.  So I drove to the entrance at the other end of the lake and asked the attendant at the entry station if she new anything abut the Anza Expedition marker.  That drew a blank expression and her comment, “I don’t even know who Anza is.”  So I went on in to look around, spotted the museum and went there.  I talked to Ranger Jack and he explained that the plaque used to be over on the other side where I had been looking, but as the reservoir rose it was  moved over and re-installed at the base of the flagpole about 20 feet from the gate where I had entered and initially asked about it.

As the expedition crossed over what is now the lake, it dropped down towards the Santa Ana rive which runs through the town of Riverside.  The Santa Ana rive cuts a sep swath through riverside, but at one point, “the narrows”, the expedition made it across – another remarkable feet for man and beast.  The site is now in a park called the Martha McClain and Anza Narrows Park.  The park is very nice and includes a bike path that runs along the bluff above the river, a monument with a plaque marking the Anza Crossing, and another monument commemorating the fact that the trails in the park have been include in the National River Trails System, administered by the Department of the Interior.  I had never herd of that before.

After crossing the Santa Ana, the expedition continued its southwesterly movement along the base of the Sierra Madre Mountains.  The route parallels IS 10 end arrives at the San Gabriel Mission where I arrived about 3:00 p.m. I had not been at that mission since I was 13 or 14 years old when I would go the Mission Playhouse, named after but not a part of, the Mission. That is where I would go with my parents and learned to enjoy Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Bach (well, maybe not Bach so much).  It is also the sight of the famous Mission Play which I don’t think I ever went to, but would like to

I arrived at the mission just as a group of Spanish-Mexican era reenactors were packing up their gear after some kind of celebration of the Anza expedition. They were all dressed in period costumes, but by the time I got there they were all packing up and heading back home, so I did not get any pictures.

The route of the expedition trough Los Angeles and up the coast is not marked by anything more than an occasional Anza Trial sign on the freeway – 210 to 134 to 101. The route seems to have taken a somewhat more northerly direction through the Santa Monica mountains down into the Simi Valley area, rather than the route through the Cahuenga Pass - the site of the final battle of the Mexican War in California - which goes down into the San Fernando Valley.  The route continued is a southwesterly path finally meeting the coast a few miles above Oxnard.

The driving guide I am using did mention, however, a Juan de Anza park in Calabasas. In that area the expedition was traveling through the Santa Monica mountains as they approached the coast. I went to the Juan De Anza park and thee was a nice plaque at the park entrance, but nothing else. I spoke to the city employee who was there on the Sunday afternoon and he said that thee is noting more than the name of the park and no identified historic spots that he was aware of in the park. 

I returned to US101 and continued north to Camarillo. That is about the point where the expedition’s route met the Pacific Ocean. There I spent the night.

Day 2 - Yuma to Hemet

Pictures show many of the scenes from today’s 111 league tour.  You can see where I was on this map.

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 20^th 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.