I asked my travel agent in Johannesburg about touring California. "Two places you must see," she said, "San Francisco and Los Angeles. San Francisco is wonderful - great atmosphere, Golden Gate Bridge, Fishermen's Wharf, Lombard Street, tram rides, Muir Woods.
"And LA. Hollywood, Disney Land, Sea World in San Diego I can book you in a very reasonably priced hotel in Anaheim," she continued. All this was indeed valid.
She was speaking from experience - she had been to California. But I have been fortunate enough to discover another California, a territory unknown or seldom mentioned in most brochures.
This California is the land of country lanes, carpets of wild flowers and pristine little towns steeped in history.
In my ignorance, I had imagined Californian history would be about the gold rush, or the clash between settlers and the indigenous peoples, or even the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
I knew very little about the war with Mexico and absolutely nothing about the Spanish missions, religious outposts established by Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan Order between 1769 and 1823. Their intention was to spread the faith among Native Americans.
Posterity might well regard this intention misguided at best, but at the time the friars were sincere.
More about these missions and the America of that era a little later. For the moment I need to explain how my introduction to rural California came about.
My son and his wife, both motorcycle enthusiasts, live in California. Together with friends they traverse the countryside especially over weekends, trying to avoid main roads and finding quiet byways. Many fascinating places were discovered in the course of these outings. My wife and I, the aged parents, are here on holiday. Our children have taken us to these little known places, not by bike I hasten to add, but by car.
The first of these visited was the tiny town of Pescadero in San Mateo County. It is situated about 23km south of Half Moon Bay and about three kilometres east of State Highway Route 1. The town has largely preserved its original character.
For example, a popular breakfast place is Duarte's Tavern, started in 1894 by the great-grandfather of the present owner. This family-run business, spanning four generations, serves homemade jams and home-cooked meals in an old wooden building. The food is delicious and the ambiance unique.
Further up the road are a bakery, a church, other buildings and houses - all more or less in their original condition.
There are no high-rise flats, condominiums or office blocks.
The town could be in a time warp. A narrow country lane crosses the main street. It meanders past farmlands and cattle and then suddenly, at the end of a straight avenue, looms a sinister, startling and evocative sculpture, a skeleton at least 5m high.
The skull with its death grin leers over empty rib bones.
The arm bones hold a heavy machine gun trailing a long belt of cartridges, the leg bones march forward with demonic menace.
The entire structure is made from rusty iron, in itself a tangible symbol of graveyard dust and decay. The impact brings home the horror and senseless slaughter of war.
As we stopped to take photographs I remarked to my son that this statue must have been made by a sensitive, thinking soldier, who needed to expiate the guilt of wartime killing.
And indeed, right then, a young man emerged from the house behind the statue and told us he had made the skeleton. He said his name was Michael and that he had seen service as a marine in the Far East and other places.
He felt compelled to create the sculpture to bring home the senseless futility of wars he felt benefited only politicians or a rich elite.
Further along the lane was a farm producing goat cheese and milk. A sign on a fence indicated the direction to take. I saw hundreds of goats in the pasture and a flock of young goats trotting behind a person carrying a food bucket.
Like the Pied Piper of Hamlyn, only this time followed by kids of a different kind, this charming procession went on its way. Later the road descended in a series of hairpin bends into a valley and then ascended in even sharper curves up the other side, eventually linking with the highway.
The countryside in April was at its best after good winter rains.
Hills were verdant and covered in patches of Golden California poppies and the colourful closely packed blooms of the Hottentot Fig lined any coastal road. This succulent plant, beautiful as its massed flowers may be, is apparently an invasive alien from South Africa.
The first of the Spanish Missions we visited was in the town of San Juan Bautista. First, a thumbnail sketch of some early American history. (I acknowledge indebtedness for this section to an article taken from Wikipedia).
Beginning in 1492 with the voyages of Columbus, the Kingdom of Spain sought to establish missions to convert the pagans in Nueva Espana (New Spain) namely Mexico, the Caribbean and most of what today is the south-western United States. However, it was not until 1741, when the ambitions of Tsarist Russia towards North America became known, that Philip V decided that such missions were necessary in Upper California.
The aim was to make converts and taxpaying citizens of the indigenous peoples, thereby extending control of the territory.
With the onset of the Mexican War of Independence in 1810, Spanish government financial support for the missions fell away. Before this, in 1806, a measles epidemic killed one-quarter of the mission Indian population in the San Francisco Bay area. Incidentally, Russian colonisation of America reached its southernmost point in 1812 with the establishment of Fort Ross, an agricultural, scientific and fur-trading settlement in what is today Sonoma County.
The death blow for the missions came, however, from disestablishment, a euphemism for robbery. In 1834 Pio de Jesus Pico IV, the last Mexican governor of Alta California, passed a decree confiscating the mission lands and allowing the selling of mission buildings. The Indian converts were scattered and starved out.
Mission San Juan Bautista (St John the Baptist) began as a small military outpost in 1797. The formal mission dedication was made a little later that same year.
In the town of San Juan Bautista the old hotel has been preserved as a museum. It has been brilliantly done. Designated passages allow glimpses into the kitchen, the saloon, the bedrooms and the dining room. The dining room has tables set with the crockery of the time, even an original menu.
The saloon is huge with billiard table, card tables and a massive bar.
Bootleggers used the nearby coastline for smuggling liquor during prohibition. Outside the hotel, sheds contain a collection of coaches of various kinds including "the Surrey with a fringe on top" made immortal by the song from the musical play Oklahoma.
Also on display are tools and machines ranging from drills and pumps to threshing mills.
Buildings were originally made from sun-baked adobe bricks. Most walls are now plastered over with cement but in places the original adobe can still be seen. Hens with tiny chicks scratch round in the grounds outside. Somewhere a cock crows loudly. The atmosphere is delightfully rural.
Our trip included a tour through Monterey and a look at Cannery Row, the fish-canning factories made famous by John Steinbeck in his novel of that name. On one beach just outside Monterey seals were lying on the sand and rocks.
Most were females come to give birth to their pups. One mother must have given birth minutes before we arrived because the placenta lay close by her, and she was nuzzling her newborn baby and cleaning it. Suddenly a flock of screaming Kelp Gulls descended on the afterbirth. Hectic fighting and pecking ensued. In 30 seconds all traces of it had vanished.
The mission at Carmel is well worth a visit. The main church is still in use - in fact as it was a Sunday a well-attended Mass was in progress. As the people streamed out afterwards, a wedding party arrived and awaited its turn.
Carmel townsfolk are obviously spiritual. Inside the Mission, areas have been preserved as a museum. These include a library with old books all written in Latin, a monk's cell, the kitchen, the main reception room for guests and visiting VIPs, and glass cases containing antique icons, clothing, tools and utensils. An ornate tomb of Father Junipero Serra, founder of the Mission, dominates one room. It is in classical style. Above the stone coffin lies a bronze effigy of the deceased, hands folded and clasped, a little dog at his feet.
Old graves surround the church. Unmarked graves are outlined with large Venus Ears or abalone shells. Statues, memorials and elaborate tombs contrast this distinction between rich and poor, ironically now all levelled by death.
The coastal road runs alongside the ocean and offers superb views and vistas. In the distance on the left a lighthouse stands lonely and tall against the sky. It is the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. The name Pigeon Point derives from the clipper ship Carrier Pigeon, wrecked on the rocks off a point just south of Half Moon Bay on June 6, 1853.
Dense impenetrable fog caused three other major wrecks - the American clipper Sir John Franklin in 1865, the British bark Coya in 1866 and the Hellespont in 1868. Forty-nine lives were lost in these three wrecks.
Construction of the tower began in 1871. The Fresnel lens designed by a brilliant French physicist was lit in 1872. It consists of 1 008 lenses and prisms and weighs over 4 000kg.
Despite the beam which could be seen even in thick fog, the liner Columbia ran aground in 1896. Residents salvaged material from the ship, including copper wire and white paint. Soon every house in the area had copper clothes lines and a fresh coat of paint.
The lighthouse has suffered structural damage and is no longer open to the public but repair plans are in place.
Rural California has been an enriching experience. I am only sad it has ended but memories will endure for many years.