Watsonville is a modern city of perhaps five thousand people, the capital of this prosperous fruit and farming district. It is only a few miles from the ocean and the summer heat is nearly always tempered by sea breezes. Its broad, well-paved main street led us into a fine macadam road which continued nearly all the way to Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz lies on the north bend of the bay, directly opposite Monterey, and is known as one of the principal resort towns of the California coast. Its population, according to the last census, was nearly eleven thousand and I ran across some "boom" literature which claimed only twelve thousand—an unusual degree of modesty and conservatism for a live California town. There was also a mission here, though it has practically disappeared.
Santa Cruz was associated in our minds with neither seaside resort nor mission, but with the grove of giant redwoods second only to the mighty trees of Mariposa. Our first inquiries were for the road to this famous forest, and we learned it was a few miles north of the town. We followed the river canyon almost due north over a shelflike road cut in the hillsides some distance above the stream. It commands a beautiful view of the wooded valley, which we might have enjoyed more had we not met numerous logging-wagons on the narrow way. The drivers—stolid-looking Portuguese—frequently crowded us dangerously near the precipice along the road; in one instance, according to the nervous ladies in the rear seat, we escaped disaster by a hair's breadth. According to the law in California, a motorist meeting a horse-drawn vehicle on a mountain road must take the outside, even though contrary to the regular rule. The theory is that the people in the car are safer than those behind a skittish horse, though in instances such as I have just mentioned the motorist faces decidedly the greater danger. We climbed a gradual though easy grade for six or seven miles and turned sharply to the right down a steep, winding trail to the river bank.
We left the car here and crossed a high, frail-looking suspension foot-bridge which swayed and quivered in a most alarming manner, though it probably was safe enough. The trees are at the bottom of the canyon in a deep dell shut in by towering hills on either side. They are known as Sequoia Sempervirens (a slightly different species from the Sequoia Gigantea of the Mariposa Grove) a variety never found far from the sea. The grove is private property and the guardian nonchalantly said, "Two bits each, please," when we expressed our desire to go among the trees. He then conducted us around a trail, reciting some interesting particulars about the tawny Titans.