Despite reports of recent violence Jul and I headed down to Santa Barbara last weekend. On a previous trip we took note of “historic bells” along the side of the road but didn’t think much of them. On this trip we paid more attention and realized there are bells, on average, every mile for the entire 300 mile drive along 101. Upon further research I learned that our state considers:

State highway routes embracing portions of I-280, Route 82, Route 238, US 101, I-5, Route 72, Route 12, Route 37, Route 121, Route 87, Route 162, Route 185, Route 92, and Route 123 and connecting city streets and county roads thereto, and extending in a continuous route from Sonoma southerly to the international border and near the route historically known as El Camino Real shall be known and designated as “El Camino Real.”

Seems very reasonable and very much in line with something the United State Board of Geographic Names would handle. What seems crazy is that they put up a bell every mile from Sonoma to Mexico…on both sides of the road!

First of all can you imagine being assigned to that task? Daunting to say the least. I’m also going to go out on a limb here and say we probably could have nixed that one from the old highway budget. In the spirit of David Macaulay’s fantastic Motel of the Mysteries I’m just imagining the archeologists thousands of years from now,

“It appears as if trade routes were marked by large bells probably indicating the residences affinity for Mexican Food as seen in the vast number of perfectly preserved Taco Bell restaurants. We suspect this affinity was the civilizations eventual undoing as the yellow taco cheese has since been shown to be a toxic polymer.”