More On-The-Road 09-09-08

The drive south from San Juan Bautista on Hwy 101 goes through prime agricultural land - very little of the flat land is not farmed. But housing developments are stretching out from the small farming towns, taking up more valuable farmland.

On the right (the west side) are coastal

mountains, so this valley does not have abundant rain. Notice the rain birds - a horizontal light grey line across the lower third of the picture. Crops are mainly vegetables - lots of lettuce.

And on the left side is the Diablo Range. Beyond those mountains is the San Joaquin Valley where I-5 runs along the foothills and the great inland valley stretches out to the haze. Crops are nuts, soft fruit, grapes, citrus - lots of almonds are grown there.

Further south on 101 north of Paso Robles there is a lot of cattle land. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you will see wavy horizontal lines. Those are cattle trails! This area has been cattle range for over 300 years - the cattle find the easiest way to go and every other cow follows that trail, creating corrugations in the soil.

Hwy 101 is pretty much the track of the missionaries up from Mexico, all along are bells on sort of shepherds' crooks indicating it is the Royal Road (the translation from the Spanish 'El Camino Real') or the King's Road. These bells were sponsored by women's clubs throughout the state at the beginning of the 20Th Century. This one in San Luis Obispo looks good, I imagine it is one of the concrete replacement bells, but some are not maintained and are very rusty. http://www.cahighways.orelg/camino.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Camino_Real_(California)

Another historic spot in San Luis Obispo is the "Motel Inn". The word motel originated here in 1925 to indicate that this was a motor court AND a hotel. So, the privacy of your own cabin or room and the amenities of a hotel. The word was never copyrighted and soon became a noun used to indicate any similar establishment.
http://www.jeffreysward.com/tributes/motelinn.htm

I show my van in pictures now and then because of my license plates - a statement that I was there, I guess.

These are the only two buildings remaining and they are under rerenovation. Who is doing the repairs and what the future might hold is something I could not determine. San Luis Obispo is a great college town with lots of places to explore, book shops, restaurants, entertainments. But it isn't on the water and in the summer the temperatures soar.

As Hwy 101 heads into Santa Barbara the center divider is a concrete barrier on each side with pink oleanders down the middle. I'll have to drive up Hwy 99 sometime soon and see how the dense oleander bushes of every color are doing there.