[Illustration: A BACK COUNTRY OAK From Photograph by Harold Taylor]
At Campo we came into the stage road and pursued our way for some miles through rolling, oak-studded hills. A band of gypsies camped by the roadside stopped us with many gesticulations and were immensely disgusted when we declined to wait for fortune-telling. They presented a picturesque sight in their brightly colored, oriental-looking costumes and at a distance some of the women looked pretty—though as they crowded up to the car a near view quickly dispelled this illusion.
Warren's Ranch, a few miles beyond Campo, is the regular stopping-place in both directions for luncheon, and a substantial farm dinner is served at a moderate price. There were perhaps fifty guests on the day of our visit and the proprietor said that it was a "little slack" as compared with the usual run of travel; that on the previous Sunday one hundred and twenty cars had passed and most of them halted at the ranch for refreshments.
A few miles beyond Warren's we entered the great hill range that cuts the Valley from the coast and jogged up the splendidly engineered road with little effort. We saw some wild, rough scenery during the climb, but nothing to prepare us for the stupendous spectacle that burst on our vision as we reached the summit. It would be no exaggeration to say that we fairly gasped with astonishment as we brought the car sharply to a stand-still, for beneath us lay a vast abysm that reminded us more of the Grand Canyon than anything else we had seen. It seemed as if the red granite mountains had been rent in twain by some terrific cataclysm, leaving a titanic chasm stretching away until lost in the purple haze of the distance. Its walls were bare—save for an occasional cactus—and the reddish tinge of the granite was intensified in the declining sun. The great boulders tumbled discordantly about, the isolated peaks springing from the floor of the canyon, and the endless array of mighty cliffs and precipices all combined to give a rare effect of wild and rugged grandeur. As we descended the winding road we saw the majestic spectacle from many viewpoints, each one accentuating some new phase of its impressive beauty.