California Highway work.
yonder hills were breathing in the clear morning air, laden with the perfume of freshly cut grain and flowers, on pleasure bent.
From the summit the road wound down to the marsh boulevard. As we descended a view of the rapidly disappearing race track was to be seen. It is not so many years back that this piece of ground was kept in perfect condition, and there blooded stock was broken to harness and trained for speed contests that were the glory of the “knights of the reins.” From this race track many four-footed thoroughbreds came who were kings of the road over which we were traveling.
From the time we left the Sausalito ferry until we reached this point we had not encountered a single horse, and one can hardly imagine that such a change could take place in the last ten years.
The road wound around the indentations of the hillsides, and as the course worked further northward. Red Rock loomed up out in the bay.
Like San Quentin this rock is a monument of forlorn hopes, for in the early days of California an enterprising company found value in the rock of this island. The company proceeded to help itself, but its progress to great fortune was one day cut short when Uncle Sam suddenly dropped in and put a stop to proceedings, claiming the right and title to Red Rock.
Passing to the right in Corte Madera the road led on to Larkspur, over a good highway.
The road skirts the marsh through which the Corte Madera Creek runs.
On the creek there are anchored a long string of arks. These floating pleasure homes have now become permanent fixtures on these waters. Some ten years ago they nestled here away from the fury of the winter southerly gales, and as spring time and summer approached they migrated to Belvedere cove, or to Richardson’s Bay, off Sausalito, but the fad of living in a floating house has waned, and it is likely that they will go into decay in the spots where they now lie anchored.
In the olden days the yachtsmen, being forced to lay up their fleet-winged boats until the arrival of the summer winds, and unable to resist the call of the salt sea air, hired these arks that were wintering on Corte Madera creek. It was the week-end trips to this locality and the high carnival enjoyed that gave to the place the name, amongst amateur sailors, of the Holy City.
Now all this is changed. Families have taken possession and everything is as decorous as is found within the boundaries of the near-by town of Larkspur.
The beautiful climate and attractive scenery of this section is drawing people more and more to it. Homes are spreading out, mounting higher and higher on the hillsides, and what a few years ago was considered an undesirable location is now being taken up by those who cannot get land nearer the railroad.
The road leads through Kentfield, and when Ross was reached we found that the road would bear comparison to any boulevard. From Ross to San Anselmo the road was fine enough to permit of a car speeding to its limit, but no one with an eye for beauty could bolt through that country.
The homes are not pretentious, being good roomy cottages, or as their owners care to have them called, “sweet bungalows.”
Roses of every hue, from the deep red of the crimson rambler to the pale pink of the sweet scented Cecil Brunner, grow in profusion. The fancy of the horticulturist was not limited to the rose, but ran riot as was seen in the large number of flowering plants that constantly brightened the way on all sides.
At San Anselmo the road to the right was taken for San Rafael. It wound in around the hills, shaded by the overhanging boughs of the trees decked in their springtime green.
In San Rafael, the same love of flowers was to be seen on every hand, while the homes are much more pretentious than those of the Ross section.
Out of the city into the open country the course led through what is known as Happy Valley, where is located the golf and country club. Out beyond, the upper bay appeared once more bringing in closer view the islands and Point Pedro on the Contra Costa shore.
