1991 Road Trip Day 1 Afternoon | Woodside | Hay Trucks, Alice's Restaurant, and California's Living Cowboy Culture

Hay Truck in a Silicon Valley Parking Lot — California Roadside, 1991 — Woodside, CA, USA — May 1991 · Velvia50

ROAD TRIP 1990–1992

In May 1991, before GPS and smartphones reshaped the way we traveled, our road trip began with nothing more than folded paper maps spread across the passenger seat. This is a record of the first afternoon of that journey in the cowboy town of Woodside—of old hay trucks and California Blue License Plates, of Four Corners and Alice’s Restaurant, and of the unexpected worlds hidden just beyond Silicon Valley.

Drawn to an Old Hay Truck

An old truck fitted with wooden side rails sat parked before me. It was the same truck the cowboy had stepped out of moments earlier. The structure was called a stake bed—a flatbed outfitted with removable wooden slats. At first glance, I had mistaken it for a cage.

But its bed was stacked with tightly compressed bales of hay. Nearby stood a pickup truck splashed with dried mud, and beside it, a trailer built for transporting horses.

This was not a ranch. It was the parking lot of a supermarket where we had stopped to buy lunch.

Men in mud-stained boots moved among shoppers carrying grocery bags. The parking lot itself became unexpectedly fascinating. In a Japanese supermarket, once the shopping is done, few people pay attention to the cars around them. Here, it was different. A glance across the rows of parked vehicles revealed how people lived. I had only come to buy lunch, yet somehow found myself peering into the daily rhythms of an unfamiliar town.

Horse looking out through the window of a horse trailer in a supermarket parking lot in Woodside, California, 1991. — Woodside, CA, USA — May 1991 · Velvia50

California Blue License Plate

Even more intriguing was the truck’s age. At the time, I couldn’t have identified its model year, but its license plate told the story.

It wore the distinctive California Blue License Plate—blue background, yellow lettering—issued between 1969 and 1987.

In America, license plates often remain with a vehicle for decades. Old cars continue traveling with the plates they first received. Those blue plates had become badges of longevity, proof that these machines had spent years beneath the California sun.

Seeing cars from the 1970s still running strong in the 1990s was entirely ordinary. On the freeways, first-generation Toyota Corollas and early Honda Civics flowed effortlessly with traffic at 65 mph (105 km/h). In Japan, those same cars had long since vanished from the roads.

California’s dry climate is kind to sheet metal. Rust arrives slowly, allowing cars to survive longer. Driving through America often felt like watching the country’s own timeline move beside you. Its roads carried not only people, but decades.

Toward the Ocean Beyond the Forest

After lunch, we climbed back into the car and headed west. Our destination was the Pacific Ocean.

California Route 84 wound quietly through the woods, carrying an atmosphere that reminded me of Karuizawa. Tall trees lined the roadside, breaking occasionally to reveal homes set on properties almost unimaginable by Japanese standards: tennis courts, swimming pools, white wooden fences, and private riding arenas. It was difficult to believe that this landscape existed only twenty minutes from Apple’s headquarters.

Gradually, the road changed. The curves tightened. Gentle inclines became winding climbs. The car was drawn deeper into the Santa Cruz Mountains.

We were supposed to be heading toward the sea, yet it felt as though we were entering an increasingly dark and ancient forest. No one knew what waited beyond the next bend. The anticipation unique to a road trip quietly gathered strength.

The Crossroads That Emerged from the Woods

Then, without warning, the forest opened.

In that world enclosed by trees appeared a tiny settlement that looked almost like the entrance to a campground: a weathered gas station with roofless vintage pumps and a modest general store that could have been lifted from the set of a Western.

Then I looked twice.

Only minutes earlier, this had seemed to be horse country. Now Harley-Davidsons filled the mountainside. The silence of the forest and the glitter of chrome appeared utterly out of place beside one another.

Years later, I learned that the building where the motorcycles gathered was Alice’s Restaurant. Originally constructed in the early twentieth century as a general store serving logging crews, it later evolved into a meeting point for riders and drivers drawn to the mountain roads.

On weekends, the gathering expanded beyond Harleys. BMW motorcycles, Ducatis, Ferraris, Porsches, even Cobra replicas arrived in waves. It was, in every sense, a motor show hidden in the forest.

Frame captured from original VTR footage filmed in May 1991. The image has been preserved as close as possible to its original recorded condition. — Video Archive | Captured from VTR footage filmed in May 1991

The Meaning of Four Corners

At the time, I knew none of this. I only knew that this unexpected place in the woods left a lasting impression.

I unfolded the map. The crossroads was called Four Corners, where California Route 84 intersected with Skyline Boulevard, California Route 35.

Looking back now, however, what mattered was not the names of the roads. What intersected there were not simply two highways, but two cultures.

To the east lay Silicon Valley, where companies poised to reshape the world had already begun gathering momentum. Yet only thirty minutes away in these mountains, horse-crossing signs still stood beside the road. Hay trucks continued their daily routes. Equestrian life remained part of the ordinary landscape. Harleys lined the front of Alice’s Restaurant, while the old general store continued welcoming visitors as it had for generations.

America racing toward the future. America carrying the memory of its frontier past.

Two entirely different timelines coexisted without cancelling each other out.

For me, Four Corners was never merely the intersection of California Route 84 and Skyline Boulevard. It was the place where high-tech ambition met the lingering spirit of the American frontier.

Continue the Journey →

▶ 1991 American West Road Trip Day1｜Road Map – Sacramento to Santa Maria

Articles from Day 1

Read the Japanese version →

Westbound, Then Skyward — Memoirs from the American West, 1990–1992 —

— Road Trip Day 1 (Afternoon) — Woodside – Where Silicon Valley Met California’s Cowboy Culture (1991) —