Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1918-07-16
An Outing Trip In California.

ents, Mr.. and Mrs. Geo. r. Morton o
ISouth Paris, and there Is some purel.
personal matter In the letter which ]
omitted:
We went Tuesday to Santa Maria
where Ben had business. We ssayet
there Tuesday and Wednesday at th,
Inn, q very nicely conducted hotel. I
is quite new and popular with tourists
liked 1t, but George thought We wer'
going camping. He said II he haf
known 1t was going to be like this b,
wouldn't have come. We went out Il
the oil fields, which are ten or flfteer
miles from the town. The crude Of
looked like soft tar. I did not know i
was 30 thick. We also went to Bette
ravia, where there is big sugar factory
with acres of beet fields, like Oxnard
Then We went to Lompoc on Thursday
and stayed two days with the Reads.
Last night We came down to Najaqu
(Nar.ar-wee) Falls and camped there al
night, and came home to-day. W.
camped on big square fiat rock right at
the foot of the falls. The falls are 12s
feet high, and could put my armt
around the stream of water, but It fslli
over limestone rock formation that II
mossy and covered with maidenhair ferI
and saxifrage. There was little scar
let flower there, too. that grew too high
for me to distinguish It.
The pool at the foot OF the falls is very
clear, and about twelve feet across, and
is the center of cylindrical wall Gov
cred with trees. We could lie on the
rock and look up at the top of the water.
fall, and see q perfect circle Of sky
trimmed with fringe of tree-tops. Ben
and I took turns climbing crooked path
that was partly ladder of roots, to the
top of the falls. was scared, thought
would not dare to come down.
thought could walk down the side ol
the hill. or rather, mountain, and come
up the creek.bed, but the trail that way
gave out and deep ravine with no trail
in it came between, 80 I had to come
back.
1t was wild and beautiful place, in
green wooded mountains. / saw varie-
ty of maple that I never saw before In
California, but they were mostly oak and
sycamore and green bay trees. You
would have enjoyed seeing 1t. ! think
you would have enjoyed the whole trip.
We went through the old Santa Rosa,
Santa Rita, and FL Captain ranches, went
to Solvang. q Danish settlement, fol-
lowed the Santa Ynez River long way.
Saw the Santa Ynez mission whole and
pretty) and the Purissima Mission at
Lompoc, all in ruins just as bad as the
old one there destroyed by an earth
quake. 1t was only partly finished when
q great crack ten or twenty feet wide
split open In q hill behind 1t, and de-
stroyed the mission. The crack is still
In the hill, aud there is surprising
amount of adobe walls left. They are
directly across the road from the Reads
house at Lompoc, where we stayed.
The walls look as though the first rain
would melt them down, but they have
lasted considerably over q century.
That was three new missions for me
on this trip. That makes nine, I think
San Juan Cspistrano, Los Angeles (for-
get the nsme), San Gabriel, Ventura,
Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez, Purissims,
the Lompoc ruins, and I have just caught
a glimpse I imagine of the San Fernando,
perhaps I did not really see 1t.
We had every known variety OF wealth
or while we were gone. 1t gets very hot
as soon as one gets through Gavista
Fremont Pass) away from the ocean.
There was q hot, dry wind almost to
Santa Maria, cool wind there, fog and
cold wind In Lompoc, dust and mud at
Solvang. At one place there was such q
dust we had to keep the horn honkinR
like boat in fog, so We wouldn't run
into any one. There were lots OF places
also where there was no mud.
We saw coyote. A father and moth
or quail and large family of little ones
walked rapidly across the road In front
of us. We saw sixteen young white
goats on hillside, and sixteen pelicsns
In one flock flying north, and countless
squirrels. An occasional band OF sheep,
cattle, horses and mules Craze unfenced
most of the way. We also saw some
thing unpleasant, huge piles of the bones
of the animals that died In the drought
last year. Some ranches lost hundreds
of them.
The prettIest sight we saw was eight
acres OF sweet peas. They looked like q
rainbow spread on the earth. They are
planted In rows about fifty feet wide oi
each color, shades of pink and purple
and white, stretching as far as the eye
could see. We thought we would like
to be up In an airplane. These are the
Burpee seed farms In Lompoc. One
year, Mr.. Read said, there were 100 acres
of sweet peas there.
have just thought why 1t is that
California never looks like Maine when
the fields are all brown. It is because
we have brown fields and green trees al
the same time, something you never
have, because the grass gets green be-
fore the trees do, and in the fall the
| trees are In their autumn foliage before
the fields, are brown. I never saw q
greener country than from Maine to
Montreal the day / left home. I left
home in sort of trance, 1t seems to me-
George said, apropos of nothing at all,
as we were riding over . hot, dusty bill
up country, "It looks pretty on the attic
stairs when 1t rains, and the rain comes
| in the pipes" he must have been
thinking OF the window on the landing
of the attic stairs at home. 1t seems
like dream almost that was home
but not just % any yesterday when II
| is past" because can't distinguish some
of them one from another, but those
particular yesterdays Georgie and / will
| live over and over again, and think ol
all the good times we had at home.
Navy Collecting Photographs.
II