Oxnard to Yosemite: Great Drives & Destinations

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

The Car

The Murphy Automobile museum in Oxnard has the 1903 factory Curved Dash Oldsmobile in which two spunky men, Hammond and Whitman, drove coast to coast, the first in USA to go the entire way (they went from California to Maine; the previous two stopped at New York). Image the dirt roads in 1903, the exposure to the weather, the slow speeds, the lack of accommodation, the discomfort. There were no Motel 6s in those days. Hammond’s granddaughter, Holley Gene Leffler, a vintage clothing designer, retraced the route with her father in 1985.

Holley Gene designed the costumes on the figures that add personality to the exhibits. She is pictured here in the 1903 Olds that Eugene Irish Hammond and Lester L. Whitman drove on that great adventure.

Our car, a Toyota Prius, is of course a lot more comfortable -- and safer. We don’t expect our trip to be even a soft adventure, just fun. But more expensive with gas at $3 a gallon on our trip.

We got our usual 45 miles per gallon on the trip; the car gets better mileage now it’s three years old than it did when new.

The museum is fun, too. Based in an attractive building in a rather out-of-the-way spot it’s a fairly recent attraction in Oxnard. Neurosurgeon Dan Murphy with the help of 30 other collectors brought it to town from neighboring Ventura just four years ago. Frank Lopez, education analyst for the museum takes around this museum that shows more than a century of the automobile industry.

“When you look around, you can relate to what was going on at that time and how people behaved with respect to their cars,” he say. “And you can see -- all through the years -- how the relationship to their cars changes.”

The Drive

It’s less than 250 miles from the central coast of California to Yosemite National Park. Part of the route goes through the rich agricultural plains of central California that border Interstate 5, a highway that hardly qualifies in that area as holding charm. Then State Highway 99 spins off to drag you more north and things improve somewhat. This is the famed farm land of southern California where, it’s said, all it lacks is water and if you can find that you can stick a walking stick into the ground and it will grow into a tree.

We’re getting hungry and know exactly where we’re going to stop. We’ve been seeing the billboards for several miles telling us we were approaching Bravo Farms Cheese Factory – recurring signs in a advertising style reminiscent of Burma Shave. The experience of hoping to arrive soon – we wanted to ask each other “Are we there yet?” –is a bit like driving west across South Dakota and seeing the never-ending signs for the famous Wall Drug. And in the same way the wait is worthwhile; we pull into the little community of Traver, California to discover a fun, funky complex that practically defies description. It’s a compound to delight the senses: decorated washrooms, goats and an animal petting place, a café, a cheese store, a gift shop and a bookstore – for starters.

This has to be the most folksy place you could find in California.

The bookstore offers all kinds of wistful, nostalgic books whose selection is hilarious. In one, on the thoughts of what an old codger will do now that he’s old, ideas vary from “I will tell my grandkids my TV is broken so they will have to listen to my stories,” to “I will invite every woman I know to the top of the Empire State Building and ask if we ever had ‘an affair I don’t remember.’”

The fun, however, may be in the collections of Americana on display all over the complex. Hundreds and hundreds are scattered on walls, fences, stands, staircases, doors. No space has been left unadorned. We know a good story when we see it so we went searching for the collector who turned out to be the property owner Jon Van Ryn, and the landlord of all the businesses. That’s a famous surname; it was the last name of the artist, Rembrandt, and in fact Jon is a distant relative of that family. His son, Jonathan Van Ryn, studied cheesemaking at California Polytechnic University before he joined Bill and Pat Boersma, the 1979 Bravo Farms cheesemakers.

We find Jon, the father, having lunch with friends. Large helpings, too, but he does co-own the café. We pay tribute to this extraordinary collection of Americana signs from auto license plates, gas station logos and Coca Cola advertisements to drug store pirates, kitchen utensils and flat irons.

“There are collectors who would kill for a display like this,” we say.

“I know, I’m one of them,” he replies.

“How long did it take you to get so extensive a collection?” we ask.

“I’ve owned this place for 16 years,” he says, “but started collecting the signs only four years ago. ‘My name is Jon, I’m a sign-a-holic.’”

They don’t take themselves too seriously here. The café uses Mason jars instead of glasses for its iced teas. When we asked a kid for the whereabouts of the owner, he replied, “His office is over there with the goats.” Tongue-in-cheek humor pervades this complex on Route 99, too. We noticed they had hung a Route 66 sign upside down to indicate their highway’s identity.

Cool!

We leave Traver and head towards Fresno on 99 through rural California. The signs come up: “Carl Jr. So close. Almost There.” “Jackpots Ahead. Club One Casino. Eat. Drink. Win!” “Caterpillar Used Parts.” “Dewey Pest Control.” “Pick-n-Pull Truck Dismantlers.”

We pull off on to Route 41 short of the sign that says, “Ahead Fresno, the Raisin Capital of the World” and head for Yosemite National Park. The signs change to “$1000 for littering.” “Wine Tasting.” “Horses For Sale.” “Jesus loves Me.” “Fine Jewelry.” “Leak Busters.” “Dog Training Lessons.” “Mug and Brush Hair Salon.” “Black Horse Lodge Free HBO.”

We’ll forgo the TV. Ahead for us lies Tenaya Lodge in Fish Camp just short of the South Entrance and we’re ready to be spoiled.