If one gets off the main roads when driving between the Bay Area and Los Angeles, you’ll get a glimpse of California’s pre-freeway landscape. In 1995, I drove from Berkeley to the Antelope Valley (in northern Los Angeles County). For the first 200 miles, I took the small county roads that run along the center of California’s Diablo Range. It was the end of a long, wet winter, and the rivers were running furious. Just off California 25 I came across this scene — old cars being used to reinforce a riverbank.