No place like home – especially in San Benito County
The speculation has been so gosh darn entertaining that it
hasn’t occurred to me to explain why Airline Highway wears the name
it does.
Given the contrails that stitch across our sky, almost always in
a north-south direction, the speculation runs heavily toward
Airline being some sort of navigational aid.
No place like home – especially in San Benito County
The speculation has been so gosh darn entertaining that it hasn’t occurred to me to explain why Airline Highway wears the name it does.
Given the contrails that stitch across our sky, almost always in a north-south direction, the speculation runs heavily toward Airline being some sort of navigational aid.
But the simple, boring truth of the matter is that California State Highway 25 between Hollister and Highway 198 at the southernmost edge of San Benito County is named for a bus route.
The Airline Bus Company once shuttled the carless from Hollister to King City and back again. Apparently, the jitneys were so well loved that the road they traveled took on their name.
So there you have it.
The buses are gone, but little else has changed along Airline Highway south of Tres Pinos.
We took a quick trip to Southern California over the last weekend. In four days’ time, we covered 900 miles, visited four universities, Hollywood and Disneyland. We had to come home because the respite work offers from the rigors of such an ambitious vacation schedule was growing more attractive by the minute.
Whenever we plan to travel along the spine of this 1,000-mile long state, we opt for Highway 101 unless schedules demand the expediency and mind-numbing boredom of I-5. And always, we begin and end the trip by looping off the big highway in King City, exchanging it for our own highway, the one that wears the bus company name.
It’s a reminder that, at the edge of the Bay Area, San Benito County remains a rural Eden.
As we passed the King City airport Sunday, we traveled above fields with sprouting row crops, and entered a canyon straight out of a western movie. Junipers struggled against the thin soil. The description “soil” is not entirely accurate to this region. Nearby is a gypsum quarry, and the surrounding earth is bleached to a startling white. Little grass grows on these hills, and boulders poke through the earth, creating a stage set that always reminds us of Western movies. At the top of a pass, a pullout invites a pause, and the view features a panorama that includes the Pinnacles, a sawtoothed ridge of rock. Descending the pass, we enter San Benito County. We are officially Home.
Immediately, the grass is deeper and greener than that which we left behind.
At the bottom of the hill, near the Bitterwater-Tully School, one of California’s last one-room schoolhouses (and one of several in San Benito County) we swing left onto Highway 25 and begin looking around.
This stretch of highway routinely gives up Wild Kingdom moments.
Every third or fourth trip, we spot a small herd of pronghorn antelope here. These small grazers are the fastest animals in North America, and seeing them bound across the landscape at 50 mph is astounding. Usually, we see them at rest, where their markings are best appreciated.
We also often spot deer, especially when the fields along the road are planted with young, tender sprouts. Once we stopped the car to watch as a coyote crept up on a doe and fawn. Our presence appeared to cause the coyote to break off its hunt, but the drama held us all breathless.
A bit further north, after passing a solitary oil well, we enter Dry Lake Valley. Sunday, we watched a coyote leaping onto unseen prey in last year’s dry grass. As we approached the turnoff to Pinnacles National Monument, yellow-billed magpies, a bird endemic to California whose numbers are plummeting as oak savanna disappears, were everywhere.
The showy, harlequin plumed birds are among my favorites, not just for their beauty but for their bold intelligence.
The sun sank toward the southwestern horizon as we passed further north. We did not take the time to stop at Paicines Reservoir on this trip. This modest pond is managed by the San Benito County Water District to recharge underground water supplies. We draw water from wells, and without the district’s systematic management of rivers and ponds deep underground, our lives would change profoundly for the worse.
The reservoir is located just south of Paicines, a collection of a store-cafe and two homes that grandly wears a name that proclaims it a town.
The lake is a stunning magnet for wildlife. Bald eagles and osprey hunt there, and at times, the lake holds more than 1,000 ducks of every description.
After that, Bolado, Tres Pinos, Stonegate and civilization came in short order, and we were home.
I cannot think of another place in this world where a trip home brings the opportunity for such beauty and adventure. Our oldest daughter travels along Highway 25 nearly every week, making the trip to and from home from her new home in San Luis Obispo. Before we venture too far into our conversation, someone is sure to ask, “how was the drive?”
To anyone who has dawdled along Airline Highway, the answer is obvious.
