The Lunch Box Journals

The mountains that define the eastern and northern boundaries of the LA metropolitan area split and while the main ranges continue to angle northwest along the Pacific Ocean, a couple of smaller ranges veer due west to the ocean. This creates a couple of valleys that lead directly east from the ocean to the mountains, introducing the cool and moist ocean breezes further inland.. The Simi Valley of Chapter 9 is one of those valleys and my path takes me due west down the Simi Valley to Ventura on the coast, skirting the coast line for a bit and then cutting back into the interior to visit the Santa Ynez Valley.

As I approach the coast the valley floor widens and provides ample space for agriculture. A variety of crops are grown, some protected from the sun by row after row of plastic greenhouses. It’s clear that the time for harvesting lemons is near!

Consistent with my goal of avoiding the “traditional” tourist areas I don’t stop during my brief sojourn along the coast. This means that I avoid Santa Barbara, which is a great place to visit but I know from experience is NOT a town that is easy to navigate in a motorhome, no matter how small. Streets are narrow, crowded and the town cloaks numerous hills. Instead I enjoy a sunny day driving along the coast off the freeway.

Periodically I pass long lines of campers perched on the shoulder of the highway above the beach.

Off shore oil rigs rise out of the ocean.

North of Santa Barbara the road cuts through hills that rise abruptly from the ocean shores until I reach Gaviota, where the highway takes a severe turn into the interior.

A short ten miles takes me up and over a small range of mountains and rather quickly I descend into the Santa Ynez Valley.

The Santa Ynez River is only 92 miles long, rising in the mountains to the east and running down a valley formed by the Santa Ynez River flowing down to the Pacific Ocean to the west. This configuration allows ocean moisture to reach inland into the valley, which is also protected from extreme weather by the Santa Ynez Mountains to the south and the San Rafael Mountains to the north. I am going to start at the ocean estuary where the Santa Ynez flows under a railroad trestle into the ocean and then work my way up the valley east. The massive Vandenberg Air Force Base straddles both sides of the lower river valley. The valley floor itself is in private hands, but all of the land for tens of miles north and south is on the military reservation and is not. This includes the beaches. The view from a hill to the south shows a county park on the left and the ocean beyond the railroad trestle.

I park and walk under the railroad trestle to the other side only to find that access to the beach is forbidden. Mud along the river estuary is as close as I get to a sandy beach.

I do have a great view from the parking lot east up the river estuary towards the mountains beyond.

About a half mile south of at the end of the road I find a surprise. The nearest town is Lompoc, about ten miles to the east, but here along the beach, at the end of the road, is an Amtrak train stop! The best I can figure is that it must meet some need for the air force base, but your guess is as good as mine!

I do get a great view north of the coastline along the air force base, most of which is not visible from the highway.

Heading up the valley towards Lompoc I pass one of the few government buildings visible from the road, a NASA installation. Until being shut down after the Challenger disaster, Vandenberg Air Force Base was the western home of the space shuttle program.

The lower Santa Ynez Valley was first settled by Chumash natives and became a spot along the Camino Real when the Spanish came to the area. The eleventh of the 21 Alta California missions, La Purisima, was established on the south side of the valley floor in 1787. The original mission was destroyed by an earthquake in 1812 and the “new” mission was built about three miles northeast on the other side of the valley.

La Purisima

The mission operated for nearly 50 years until after the Mexican War of Independence when the victorious Mexican government dismantled the California missions and sold off their land. The complex fell into disrepair until the 1930’s when the restoration of the mission was undertaken by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Today La Purisima is considered to be the most complete and accurate restoration of the 21 missions in California. A small Visitor’s Center and museum containing a collection of artifacts documenting the history of the mission and restoration.

Surprisingly, though the mission had been abandoned for a long time many of the original relics were still around the community of Lompoc and are now housed in the museum and restored buildings, including an original bell that rang over the countryside. The inscription on the bell reads “Manuel Vargas made me year of 1818 La Purisima Mission of New California.”

After the mission was abandoned the land passed into private hands until 1905 when the State of California took ownership. A picture from 1890 shows the state of the decay.

The roof tiles were salvaged for other projects and without protection from the weather, the adobe brick walls began to melt away, as seen in this photograph from the early 1930’s prior to the restoration.

The CCC tried to use similar methods and materials as the early builders in their reconstruction with the addition of steel girders in the walls and other strategies designed to prevent damage from the frequent earthquakes in the area.

Leaving the visitor center one walks down a gentle slope and across a seasonal creek bed out onto the mission grounds. The mission is essentially built in a line extending from the pink-walled cemetery and bell tower on the left to the colonnaded shops and barracks building on the right. A third, larger building housing the priests and mission majordomo stretches further to the right out of the picture.

The small enclosed cemetery does not appear to contain any of the original graves, a large cross stands at the south end in remembrance while the bell tower rises in the northeast corner.

Outside of the enclosure are the remains of the mission tallow vats, where beef fat from the mission cattle was melted and purified before being stored in cowhide bags to be used for cooking, making candles and soap, or sold to traders for other goods.

A series of small rooms used by the priests in preparation for services contain a small number of original artifacts. The large sacristy chest in this room was crafted in 1799.

The church itself is a long narrow room. Standing at the far end under the choir loft the church stretches before me. The pictures make the space seem smaller than it is as the church was designed to hold 1,000 people at a time.

An original confessional and baptismal font are near the choir loft.

Attached to the church is the next large structure, the shops and quarters building. A long veranda provided shelter from the sun and elements to the soldiers, workman and their families who lived and worked within. The front of the building faced the Camino Real, or “King’s Road”, the main highway from San Diego to San Francisco, and the rear of the building opened up to two large courtyards where many of the household functions took place.

The first courtyard housed the domestic operation of the mission. Here the natives went about their daily cooking and cleaning chores.

The second courtyard served the production of olive oil and wool, two of the major sources of revenue for the mission. A burrow would pull the grinding stone around to grind the olives into a mash which was then carried over to the adjacent olive press where the oil was squeezed out of the mash.

Along the east side of the courtyard where the apartments for the majordomo, or foreman of the mission, who was responsible for the livestock and farms. The majordomo was usually a retired soldier who was waiting for his own land grant to be authorized. As one of the elite of the mission, he and his family enjoyed luxuries not available to most mission families.

Finally at the far end of the building was the weaving shop, where the raw wool was processed and then woven. At its’ peak the shop produced about 1,000 blankets a year.

The third of the large structures is the residential building where the padres lived and worked. Detached from the first two, the padres’ efforts to ensure survival of the structure during the frequent earthquakes in the area are seen in the buttresses along the end and thick columns of the colonnade.

A second chapel is contained within. Originally a chapel for the padres, it became the main church for the mission in later years when the population of the mission dwindled and an underwater spring opened up under the original church, rendering it unusable.

The structure housed the living quarters and offices for the two padres who ran the mission, including an indoor toilet!

Stepping outside I look south along the east façade of the mission complex. Because the buildings are offset a bit, you can’t see the church and bell tower at the far end.

Set apart from the main buildings along dirt trach which is the remains of the original Spanish Camino Real, sits the blacksmith shop.

As I circle back towards the visitor center at the base of the hill to my left is the spring house, where water from nearby springs was channeled and filtered through sand before traveling underground in clay pipes to the fountain in the garden that served as a water source for the mission.

Further along the path is the “lavanderia”, a large pool fed by an underground pipe from the spring house used by the natives for doing laundry and bathing (while bathing was not valued by the white inhabitants of the mission, the natives took cleanliness very seriously.}

Just beyond is the “Monjerio” where young native girls above the age of eleven but still not married came to live and learn how to cook, sew and weave.

As I return to the visitor center parking lot I have essentially completed a circle around the mission grounds.

Leaving the mission the flat valley floor is under cultivation in all directions.

Barely a mile outside the mission walls is the bustling town of Lompoc. Originally established as a temperance colony in 1874, Lompoc slumbered for years as a small town surrounding by fields of flowers as it became to be known as the “flower seed” capital of the world. During World War II lands around Lompoc were the home of Camp Cooke, an army training installation. The fate of Lompoc changed instantly in 1958 when Camp Cooke was chosen as the site for the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Renamed Vandenberg Air Force Base, the military installation is by far the primary employer in the area and the town of Lompoc is now home to over 50,000 people. Because Lompoc is a relatively “new” town the historic city center is quite small. However, murals decorate the sides of numerous buildings in the city core.