But when peace restores the automobile to the family man and honeymooning couple, they will know [the journey from Santa Barbara to San Francisco] again as most travelers have known it, as 360 of the loveliest miles of the American landscape. You follow the ocean to Gaviota, and high away on your right are the violet Santa Ynez Mountains trenched with deep purple shadows. On your left are fine bean and walnut farms carpeting down to the edge of the cliffs over the sea. And the highway runs between poplars. Then you go north through a high pass and climbing up the mountains watch the afternoon light break up the smooth green contours of the morning, till the mountains break and fold into all the violent shapes, the fierce blue valleys that have made every afternoon for thousands of years. Occasionally, you see something glisten from the brushwood like the snout of a puppy. It is anti-aircraft guns again. On a narrow plateau with your back against the hard mountains and your face toward the silver Pacific, you can see islands like mirages floating above low clouds.