Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

Nov 16, 2003

Trip 2: Santa Clara

Filed in Book Crossing, Landmark-Hunting, Motorcycling, Raven's Quest

16 November 2003

The threatened forecast of rain had changed to “mostly sunny.” The sky itself said “mostly sunny.” After procrastinating and twiddling with my book goodie bags for an hour or so, I put on my kit and left.

My first stop was at Walgreen’s, to buy a disposable camera. Given that we’ve managed to make two digital cameras self-destruct in the space of a few months, I figured it was worth a go at a cheap one. By the laws of old Murphy, it will probably last for the entire two years warranty period.

Then came trial by plastic. The camera was encased in one of those obnoxious, impossible-to-open plastic bubbles. I don’t carry a knife, though maybe I should, to deal with all those annoying plastic-opening occasions. My fingers couldn’t open it. My keys couldn’t open it. Threats of bodily harm to said plastic couldn’t open it. So I snuck out the back way, avoiding the dug-up road, and went home.

I got my package opened, and headed on my way to the Very Exciting Expressway. No waiting around this time. I’m almost teachable!

I zoomed along at a nice, sturdy fifty miles an hour; on a Sunday there wasn’t much traffic: better still. I enjoyed the wide sweeping curves and the feeling that I was in control of my bike; when I ride there is nothing other than the ride, the road…scanning for danger, enjoying the motion. The fear is gone…but the survival instinct is there. There is never any day-dreaming, but the worries and reality of life are left behind as well, unable to keep up with the sleek, roaring motorcycle.

The road ends abruptly near San Jose Airport, with the “birds” parked in plain view as you hit the intersection with De La Cruz. I pulled into the nearest parking lot and scampered up the little grass bank to take a photograph of the place where, according to the landmarks guide, Santa Clara Mission had put down roots for the first time. It was hard to juxtapose the image of a cross and buildings on the busy urban intersection, to see anything other than the traffic heading up to the freeway, or the airport or the many office buildings and concrete parking lots. There used to be a marker there, but that has long since gone–the road has been reshaped many times and even now was under construction. I quickly got my GPS coordinates, then headed out again. This landmark was not quite done with, and I had a block to go.

A couple of stop lights later I pulled into the parking lot of a gas station. Across the road (stomp-stomp-stomp) there is a dinky little park with a large memorial cross. This marks the second site of the Santa Clara Mission; rumour has it that the third site (they really weren’t that lucky) is marked by a plaque somewhere close, but I’ve never been able to figure out where it is. The book claimed that it was at the intersection of two roads which do not intersect. This kind of misdirection is not rare in landmark-hunting.

The park was a little symmetrical square, the cross at its centre; at the far side I found a shrine with a little Madonna. It was peaceful in there, feeling like a tiny outdoor church, separate from the city, the airport…the rest of the world. A cold breeze blew and I couldn’t find a suitable release location–it felt too much like a sacred spot. So I hopped on Arnie, visited the strip mall kitty corner to the shrine, and left it in one of the free magazine stands instead, heading for Santa Clara Mission Incarnation the Fifth. (The fourth one burned down. It really wasn’t very lucky.)

I was soon pulling through the entrance post with its little guard hut (no guard) into a complex full of lovely old buildings on either side. I parked up and wandered past the De Saisset museum to an informational stand, enjoying my first view of a landmark that had proved very elusive in the past. Another

I caught a couple of grins and curious glances from students and visitors, and when I glimpsed myself in my mirrors I understood why. Despite my usual mess of helmet hair, my cheeks were glowing and I had a wall-to-wall grin of happiness and contentment. Riding for me is simply joyous, and that sort of thing tends to reflect nicely outwards. (Try walking down a street some day with a big smile on your face–see how many people respond to that.)

The mission was a beautiful, typically Catholic place with the wedding-cake style and a creamy-coloured facade. It reminded me, in both looks and feel, of the many Catholic churches I had visited in Slovenia, Germany, France…back then California was Spanish, and the Americans hadn’t yet gained much of a foothold.

I admired it from the information board, exchanging idle admiration with the woman already there–we agreed that it was, indeed, most lovely. After I’d taken a moment to absorb, I wandered closer and happily read the historical marker. A brand new one for me–hooray!

I did a lot of peeping. I peeped into the rose memorial gardens which even at this time of year are pretty. I peeped into the church, with its mellow lighting and classic architecture; however, it was a “working” church, so I did not linger long. I peeped at the big cross outside, which tells you that the original mission cross is, in part, preserved inside it. Then I sat on a bench opposite the museum and peeped at the whole scene for a while, as rollerblading students passed back and forth.

Then I munched on chocolate and looked at my map, and went on my way to the Old Adobe Women’s Club, another one that had proved elusive due to the strange spaghetti tangle of roads in this corner of Santa Clara. For a city built, as most are, on the grid system, it still has many quirks. I skirted the outer edge of the mission, with its old adobe walls, almost overshot, did an interesting and inelegant maneuver that for want of a better term I’ll call a u-turn, and lo, I had arrived.

Built for the neophyte Indians in about 1790, and the only surviving structure of the third mission complex, the building is now private property owned by the Women’s Club. There is a little arched gateway, just like a lych-gate, through which, for example, a curious motorcyclist can peer, and there one can see a pretty walled garden with wonderful old trees, flowers, and an attractive old building in the shadows at the back. It reminded me of one of my favourite books, “The Secret Garden,” and as it is open to the public on Fridays, I’d rather like to go back.

My engine hardly had time to fire up before I was at the next one–the Charles Copeland Morse Residence, in the heart of Stop Sign Land, and an area unofficially known as The Old Quad, where some of the oldest buildings in Santa Clara can be found. As I started snapping and admiring the huge Queen Anne Victorian, seeming to tower above me at the top of a steep slope, a lady with a pretty golden retriever came by and observed how nice a day it was for taking pictures and going for a ride. It certainly was!

That’s the thing about our Bay Area winters. The rain comes and it is soggy for days on end, but then it goes away and you get glorious patches like this, for a few days, and it just repeats over and over. It’s almost always either-or, and you don’t have to worry. It really is possible to dodge the raindrops here.

I took a few more pictures of “The House That Seeds Built”–Charles Morse and his partner founded the Ferry-Morse Seed Company, and quite evidently made a real success of it. Following the theme, the historical marker here is pretty, set in its own planter with ivy trained around it, and no doubt flowers in the spring. I planted a book (about plants, of course) in the planter, then went off for my final visit. The sun was starting to lower in the sky now, though dark was still at least an hour away, and I felt it was time to hurry on home.

I left this lovely corner of the city behind for the wide tracts of “El Camino”. El Camino Real linked all the California missions, and these days roughly corresponds to US-101, but in this neck of the woods it follows state highway 82 from just south of San Jose to San Francisco. I am very fond of it, especially at night when the neon comes out to play and the seedier, somehow worn-down structures of the city seem softer and more lonely.

It’s funny how you can ride in one place and it is silent, and in others there is a roar…how the energy switches from road to roa, and you must pick them according to your mood. El Camino Real is always alive and I have always enjoyed it, right from when we were first introduced back in 1996. It has always seemed like the epitomy of Americana, and it still does–I love the little mission bells that line it, the shops and malls, how it changes and reinvents itself every few miles, with only the repetition of chain stores to show that it is a continuous piece.

I pulled into the Civic Center Park. and wandered through another place Here, a gigantic statue of Santa Clara looks out on the road, and holds a kind of peace around her so that you can almost forget the busy road nearby; pigeons perch on her head and roost in her praying hands, and fountains play in the sunlight. With sunset almost upon me, the waters were reflecting back a blast of almost blinding light; this was a cloudy, overcast sunset, no reds and golds, only steel and silver this time.

I wandered past a veritable crop of historical markers that I had not seen when I was here before, and smiled to see that one was a time capsule to be opened on the USA’s tricentennial in 2076. I dropped off my last book at the site of the Battle of Santa Clara, and then I went home, tired, content and filled to the brim with new nuggets of history.

Summary

2. #250: Old Sites of Mission Santa Clara de Assis and Old Spanish Bridge
(Book about a missionary’s life, title long since forgotten)
3. #338: Mission Santa Clara
(1) “Angels” by Ariel Books
(2) “Compact Dictionary of the Bible” by J.D.Douglas, Merrill C. Tenney
4: #249 Old Adobe Women’s Club
“Ten Women Who Shook The World” by Sylvia Brownrigg
5. #904: Charles Copeland Morse Residence
“Ground Covers” by Sunset Books