| Sunday, February 10, 2002 |
19:11 - This is what Sundays are for...
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It was another beautiful day today, so I did what I've been meaning to do for a long time: I lit up the ZX-11 and rode it down the whole length of Monterey Road.
South of San Jose, the road follows the north-south valley next to the railroad, extending some twenty miles before it gets to Gilroy, where 101 joins it to cover the old route to Monterey. The old road is there between San Jose and Gilroy, though, with few cars and lights that get spaced further and further apart-- though you can see them coming a mile away, a rare thing in the Bay Area-- as you pass through the regions between towns.
The first of these towns that you get to is Morgan Hill, named for the peaked-cap hill just west of the town, part of the southern ridge of the Santa Cruz mountains that separate the Monterey Road valley from the ocean. Morgan Hill is a very surprising little treat to find so close to Silicon Valley: it's an agricultural town, with no freeway nearby and with a downtown area centered around Monterey Road that has diagonal parking on tree-shaded sidewalks for the little shops making up the traditional downtown shopping walk. No strip malls, few gas stations-- even the Rite-Aid is in a stand-alone little red-tile-roofed building, and it doesn't even have a Safeway facing it across an L-shaped shopping center. Very refreshing.
After the downtown area of Morgan Hill, I had my eye out for interesting-looking roads into the mountains that loomed up on the west with enticingly steep little canyons and green tree-terraced hills; I saw Watsonville Road leading off that direction, and made a note of it for later.
Gilroy is next; its downtown is very similar to Morgan Hill's, but the town is a lot more touristy, because of the garlic and the fact that the freeway comes back to meet and absorb Monterey Road there. There are a number of residential streets coming off of Monterey itself, giving the impression that Gilroy is an old-fashioned agricultural town like Morgan Hill, that is trying to fashion itself into an outlier of Silicon Valley proper-- it has a Caltrain station right in the middle of the old tree-lined downtown, the old root-broken sidewalk suddenly turning modern and crisp, with the red-surfaced crosswalks and stick-supported saplings saying "Brand-new! We're modern!" Still no good restaurants in the town, though.
Highway 152 broke off from the middle of Gilroy, though, with signs indicating that it was on its way to Watsonville: Would I like to come along? Well, hmm-- let me check. Yes! I followed it as it beelined for the hills; it wound its gently curving, eucalyptus-lined way down a deep valley full of vineyards and farmer's markets, and then met up with a northward-pointing road: Watsonville Road. Some guys on Harleys were turning onto it. Aha, I thought: I've just discovered my route home. For later. Not now.
As soon as I passed the turnoff for Watsonville Road, continuing westward, the air suddenly turned crisp and cold-- we hadn't even begun climbing or entered the canyon yet, but it was as if the road knew I was on my way up, and was dispensing with the heat just to welcome me. It's the same air that I always feel in the Santa Cruz mountains further north, up in Saratoga, when we're heading up to Alice's Restaurant; it appears the hills feel the same down south, too.
About five miles of entertaining, uphill twisties under a dark canopy of trees later, the road reached the crest of the hills-- and it was brought home to me in an instant just how razor-narrow this ridge of the mountains is, because I came around the last curve to find bright sunlight staring me in the face: the westward-sinking sun over a broad valley, spread out under me like the vistas from Quimby Road-- not quite as dramatic, but every bit as pretty. There's even a turnout with a wall for sitting and staring, right where the road comes out of the trees. And of course I had no camera.
Ah well. The road comes down from there down the escarpment-like westward slope of the ridge, reaching the floor of the coastal plain after about three miles. And then it was Watsonville.
This town-- well, this agricultural community is only separated by a narrow ridge from the tech and suburban centers of Cupertino and Saratoga and Los Gatos, but you'd never know it from looking: this town looks more at home up in Northern California somewhere, or any place hundreds of miles away. It's got pickup trucks and farmer's markets-- no fruit stands, those are for tourists; and this is no tourist town. It's a real, live rural community, but one with a surprising dash of Japanese restaurants sprinkled in among the taquerias and burger places.
It's also bigger than it looks at first. You see the "city limits" sign, you see a few downtown-looking buildings, and you think you're through it. But then you look down the road and see that it just keeps getting thicker and thicker with houses (not the modern big-block stucco-walled clay-tile-roofed tract homes, but real live individuals' houses) and businesses, and then finally-- it gives you plenty of warning, but somehow it still comes as a suprise-- you find yourself in a real, live, honest-to-goodness downtown. There's even an ornate, early-20th-century-looking hotel of about six stories right in the middle; you turn around it, and the buildings suddenly look modern and cosmopolitan, and the streets canyonlike; it's as though emigrants from Monterey and Ojai started their own little colony, and tried to make it look like Pasadena. And then there's that green, flowing ridge of hills at the edge of town-- it's really fantastically attractive.
So anyway, I headed back just before sunset, bypassing the vista point at the ridgetop so as to have as much light as possible; I didn't, however, try to keep up with the squid gangs on their Hayabusas and Ducatis that kept passing me on tight inner corners. I'm still a beginner, guys; I'll catch up in a year or two. So over the ridge, through the chilly tunnel of trees, and out into the dim valley of Monterey Road again. Except this time I took Watsonville Road, which was almost deserted of cars, full of great straightaways, and a helluva lot of fun. It met up with Morgan Hill where I'd seen it on the way south, and I was back on course.
Having now seen the western, off-the-beaten-path region of Morgan Hill, I know now that it's got a rather large residential area after all-- a modern tract-home area, as a matter of fact, with lots of little twisty roads, and even a posh enclave called "Sorrento" with palm trees and a fountain. People were walking around on the crisp, new sidewalks in the dusky air; it was oddly comforting. I noticed more hints of 2002 on Monterey Road, too, including a coffee shop with a pointed cupola on a gazebo that matched up whimsically with the profile of the Hill behind it. I'll definitely have to bring my camera next time.
So, back up Monterey, then up Silver Creek Valley Road, and so back home. And the motorcycling season has officially begun.
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