In the middle of the valley is the city of San Jose, an active, bustling town, full of life and business. We spent a pleasant day at the Hotel Vendome, an old-fashioned and delightful hostel, surrounded by a park of fine trees and flowering shrubs. The Vendome is a good place in which to rest and bask in the sunshine. When we next motor through the Santa Clara Valley, we shall visit the New Almaden quicksilver mine, twelve miles from San Jose, and commanding from its slopes a wondrous view of the valley and the Garden City, as San Jose is called. And there is the interesting trip from San Jose to Mt. Hamilton and the Lick Observatory. One can motor by a good road to the summit of the mountain, 4,209 feet above sea level, and spend the night at the hotel below on the mountain slope. Leaving San Jose, we were more and more charmed with the valley as we drove along through orderly orchards and past tasteful bungalows. This was the California of laden orchards, of roses and climbing geraniums, of green hills rising beyond the valleys, of which we had read. As we approached the foot hills of the Santa Cruz Mountains we looked back and saw the green valley with its ranks of trees unrolled below us. Passing through the little town of Los Gatos (The Cats), we began to climb. As we turned a curve on the winding mountain road, the green expanses of the Happy Valley were lost to view. We were coming now into the region of immense pine trees and of the coast redwoods, the Sequoia sempervirens. The road was fair but very winding, requiring close attention. We crossed singing brooks and passed wayside farms high in the hills, with their little patches of orchard and grain. We saw a big signboard indicating the two-mile road to the Montezuma Ranch School for boys, and shortly after were at the top of the grade. Then came the descent, the road still winding in and out among the forests. At the Hotel de Redwood, a simple hostel for summer sojourners from the valleys, we saw a magnificent clump of redwoods, around which had been built a rustic seat. At the foot of the hill we turned left instead of right, thus omitting from our itinerary the town of Santa Cruz and the redwoods of the Big Basin. We hope to see this noble group of trees sometime in the future. We took luncheon in a little cafe at Watsonville. When I asked the young German waiter for steamed clams he said, "Oh! you mean dem big fellers!" From Watsonville, a bright little town, we drove on toward Salinas, making a detour which took us around the town instead of directly through it. We were crossing the green plains of the Salinas Valley, and before us rose the dark wooded heights of the famous Monterey Peninsula. On through the town of Monterey to Pacific Grove, a mile beyond, and we were soon resting in an ideal bungalow watched over by two tall pines. What a memorable week we spent at "Woodwardia"! A quarter of a mile to our right was the sea, whose sound came up to us plainly on still nights.