Chinatown and There Will Be Blood are two Hollywood movies about California's turbulent history around water and oil.
There Will Be Blood is based on Upton Sinclair's novel Oil, published in 1927, and that story was based on Edward L. Doheny who struck it rich in oil in Los Angeles, California in 1892. The Doheny Estate is owned by the city of Beverly Hills and the Greystone mansion has a haunted story to tell.
Just south of Monterey County in San Luis Obispo County is Highway 46, the road that takes travelers from Cambria on the Pacific Ocean coast a few miles south of where Hearst Castle is located to the Central Valley of California.
James Dean Memorial Junction is the spot where James Dean died at the age of 24 in a car crash September 30, 1955 weeks after completing the movie Giant.
Highway 46 was known for years as blood alley for its 60-mile long stretch of straight two lane road between Highway 101 and Interstate 5, the two main north-south freeways in California. The road was only expanded to four lanes in the past three years.
There is oil all over California. Monterey County has oil wells in the San Ardo oil field in the upper Salinas Valley. Oil rigs are in the sea from Long Beach to Santa Barbara. As I passed through Bakersfield there are several vineyards with oil pumpjacks right in the middle of the grape vines.
California Aqueduct is a 700 mile canal transporting water from the Sierra Nevada mountains to the Central Valley farms and cities along the coast.
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