Trips in California - 1947

Our Trip up North
Feb. 4, 1947

Tuesday

1. We left Cardiff-by-the-Sea about nine a.m. with Mrs. W. Benson, our neighbor, Mae and her dog, Pal. We went north on Route 101.
2. Between Long Beach and Santa Monica is an oil country; we saw hundreds of oil wells.
3. Long Beach has a “Cony Island”.
4. We see oranges along the way at ten cents a dozen.
5. On Santa Monica there is a movie colony.
6. We have the ocean on one side and high cliffs on the other.
7. We stay over night at “Bright View Motel.”

Wednesday
1. The country is beautiful from Santa Monica to Ventura.
2. In Ventura we visit the old mission where a wedding is taking place.
3. We arrive at San Luis Obispo and we stay overnight at O’Rily’s Court. It is new and modern.

Thursday
1. San Luis Obispo is a town surrounded by mountains.
2. We see a large cattle roundup with six cowboys.
3. The fog is thick through here this morning and we are told that they have had no rain since Christmas.
4. We are passing Camp Roberts a huge place. We have been going through a farming country all day. The fog was gone before noon.
5. We arrive at Salinas and are undecided which route to take. We have the choice of Route 1 or stay on 101. We are told that Route 1 is much more scenic but dangerous.
6. Route 101 has only two lanes for long distances.
7. We arrive at San Mateo, near San Francisco and we spend the night in “Holywood Auto Court”. It is rather foggy.

Friday
1. The owner of “Hollywood Auto Court” takes us all to San Francisco in his new Packard. We see all points of interest, or rather most points of interest.

Saturday
February 8, 1947
1. We leave Hollywood Court, where we stayed two nights, at San Mateo.
2. We see Stanford University in Palo Alto, off 101 Route and we are deeply impressed.
3. We are told that Ex-President Hoover donated his home to this University his former home in Palo Alto. And now he lives in New York. We have breakfast at twelve o’clock. We continue on Route 101 to Gilroy where we branch on to Route 152. We see orchards of citrous fruit fields under cultivation, huge herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, cotton fields and mountains in the background. We arrive in Fresno where we spend the night in a cottage for four. The weather is cloudy and it is raining a little.

Sunday
February 9, 1947
We leave Fresno about eight a.m. We go through Bakersfield and we encounter a sand storm. Then we go over mountains for a distance of about40 miles on Route 99. We go through heavy rains as we cross these mountains. The elevation is 4300 feet. We arrive near Los Angeles and we stay over night at Hightland Oaks Motel.

Monday
February 10, 1947
We leave Hightland Oaks Motel and arrive at Wilmington without seeing the city of Los Angeles. At Wilmington we inquire about the boats to Catalina Island. The weather has been beautiful most of the time on our trip. The old Ford has given perfect satisfaction. All has gone well. A trip never to be forgotten. We arrive at Mae’s home about five o’clock.

I forgot to mention the fact that we stopped to see San Luis Obispo mission in the city of San Luis Obispo.


Our Trip to Palm Springs
March 27, 1947

We left Cardiff-by-the-Sea about 10:00 a.m. Thursday, March 27th with Mae and Pal.
Daddy wore his Palm Beach suit. We left on Route 101.

We changed from 101 to 78 in Carlsbad. We changed again from 78 to 395 at Vista. We went through Fall Brook. We went over mountains, mountains, and more mountains. We saw many olive and avocado orchards also many vineyards. We arrived in Perris at 1:30 pm. When we inquired about the road ahead a man told us: “It is as good as wheat.” We arrived in Beaumont at 2:30 pm where we had dinner. (This is Thursday where it is delightfully cool in Beaumont.) We came to Banning where we saw many courts. Then we came to Cabazon where we saw a cacti garden; the cacti came from all over the world.

We arrived in Palm Springs about 5 pm on Thursday the same day we left home. Palm Springs is a beautiful town surrounded by mountains. San Jacinto, San Gorganian have snow covered summits. We found the cabins too expensive in Palm Springs so we went on to Cathedral City where we paid $6.00 for a two room cabin. We enjoyed a shower with plenty of hot water and comfortable, clean beds. We stayed in Cathedral City two nights. On Friday we visited the surrounding country. Rob had expected to play golf, but he found that it was too costly. Each player was required to have a caddie.

We visited a trailer full of rare stones from all over the world. A rockologist showed some of the stones to us. Some sold for $500.00. Chuckawalla Slim is the rockologist’s name. We had our dinner at Desert Café after sightseeing all day.

Saturday – We left Cathedral City after having breakfast at Desert Café. We spoke to a lady that was bitten by a red ant and was under a Dr.’s care during several weeks. Rob saw a young man that was thrown off his horse when the horse was frightened by a rattlesnake. The young man was badly injured. Saturday morning we came to Palm village.

I forgot to say that we saw many tall, blooming shrubs in Palm Springs, Oleander shrubs, some have red, others pink, others white flowers. Bougainvilla shrubs, some have purple, others wine color, others red flowers like Mae’s, near her garage.

We visitted a date ranch call Ripley’s groves, where we bought dates to send away. We also purchased a basket for Mary L and John. We came to Shield’s Gardens, a famous place. We sat under a grapefruit tree and enjoyed a date milk shake, Mae’s treat.

We arrived in Indio then in Kane Springs on 99 and continue on 99 instead of branching off on 78. But after inquiring at an oil station about the roads we went bake to Kane Springs and took 78 across Anza Desert State Park. We came to Banner over mountains on a winding road. The wild lilacs everywhere were in bloom. The scenery was breath taken. This was on Saturday at 4 pm. We came to Julian where the elevation was about 4000 feet. We went through Ramona then to Escondido where we did our shopping. From there we went to Mae’s home, that was our home too, at that time at Cardiff-by-the-Sea. The trip was a grand success. It was a great joy to see a little more of California.

We were gone only three days from Thursday a.m. until Saturday evening, March 29th.