The 101

California comprises a land area of 163,694 square miles. It’s the third biggest state after Alaska and Texas. Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Maryland, West Virginia, and South Carolina could all fit within Californian borders. When it comes to heading up and down this massive Golden State, there’s only two major options…Interstate 5 via the inland route (fastest if you’re heading north to Oregon or Washington, or south to Mexico), and Highway 101, about 430 miles of it, between the state’s most significant hubs of Los Angeles and San Francisco.

As such, the 101 is quite easily my most traveled pavement, second only to the 154 in Santa Barbara County. It’s the road I must use just to get out of my hometown if I’m heading to Los Angeles and San Diego, which I do frequently thanks to our boys living in those environs, plus L.A. concerts we often attend, and any number of cultural happenings and events. Remember, as I’ve said, I live in that strange ‘elbow’ portion of California on its Point Conception coast, which means I have limited egress points, because this part of the state is odd in its geographical topography.

You can’t comfortably navigate Southern California and all its offerings without a motor vehicle. We don’t have a proper nor extensive public transit network that New York, Chicago, or San Francisco all enjoy. Everybody’s got a car here and the 101 is our main thoroughfare to virtually anything and everything. You might think that the 101 would be littered with descansos of all shapes and sizes, with its proximity to both the urban and rural Hispanics of our sorely underpaid and wildly underappreciated workforce.

But no. Cal Trans keeps the two main byways in California fairly clear of roadside memorials. It’s not for lack of incidents. It’s more likely our governance in Sacramento issues directives for keeping those roads clean and serviced and not littered with personal hallmarks, likely seeing them as unnecessary distractions on the freeways where folks are most likely to speed. In the Central Valley depths, where the 5 cuts through hundreds of miles of agricultural land, and on the stretch of the 101 between northern Los Angeles to San Jose and south San Francisco, people do indeed put their pedals to the metal. Me included. I’m uncertain if I recall seeing any roadside memorials on the 5. I definitely have no photos of any markers upon the 5. I just took the 5 to Tahoe in August of 2024, a good thousand mile round trip. Didn’t see a single cross.

But I have seen a handful along the 101, including one for my segment Happy. They seem to appear more in SoCal than in NoCal. Not sure why that is, there’s plenty of Hispanics and Catholics up north as much as down here. Interestingly, most of the photos I took were of shrines just outside of Santa Barbara or very near thereabouts.

The header photo of the descanso above was erected not far past northern city limits here in Santa Barbara. It’s an older one, honoring one Cameron Edward Martinez. I’ve been driving by it for a number of years.

This next one below was located only 20 miles further north, just short of the Gaviota Pass, erected on the meridian of 101 between north and southbound lanes. I couldn’t quite determine the decedent’s true name, unless it was Jesus, in the Spanish vernacular, but I was forced to guess because it’s emblazoned in ink on the metal pail, obscured by bouquets of flowers below the tree bough cross, along with a ‘rest in peace’ rendered en espanol.

On this flip side of town aside the southbound 101, on the corner of the infamous in-town bottleneck just before Milpas Street, this one was very old and is still standing to this week, last I checked a couple days ago. There is no remaining epitaph. Note the 101 road sign in the background.

Only a few miles further south, in the wealthy hamlet of Montecito, I came upon this descanso on the southbound side of 101, honoring Louis Hernandez, Jr.

This next one below was on the northbound 101 just outside of Buellton and the Santa Ynez Valley, honoring a woman named Paulina.

Another one I’ve driven by many times on the northbound 101. I couldn’t tell if the pair of epitaph-free crosses were honoring two different decedents or if one person had been crafted a second honorarium. The cross on the left was crafted in polished, white birch wood, first I’d seen of its kind. Lovely.

Finally, I didn’t include this last one in my Ventura segment No Woman’s Land, despite it being located within city limits, because it was situated right upon the northbound 101 near the off-ramp to the ‘blood alley’ of the 126 (that latter road is spoken of at length in my entry Magic Mountain). There was no cross, but rather a wreath, a plaque, and a photo affixed to a utility pole. The shrine memorializes a motorcycling young man named Dakota Stone who served our country. ‘Til Vahalla’ is a common military slogan taken from Norse mythology concerning the warrior’s afterlife, to offer respect and remembrance for a fallen soldier.

Sometime soon in the New Year, I’ll end up taking a road trip to Northern California, specifically the greater Bay area, just to determine whether there really is a disparity between NoCal and Socal in terms of the frequency of descansos. It seems strange to think it’s a limited phenomenology specific to SoCal and the deserts, but…maybe?

Anyway. Cameron, Louis, Paulina, Dakota, and you other three or four souls whose earthly markers lay herein…stay frosty on your continued journeys.