Sometimes the drive from Lakeside to Julian is real boring. Like in the late afternoon clog-up.

Sometimes my brain backfires badly and I go into an altered state of consciousness whereby the pukey present melts down into a panorama of a pastoral past. Suddenly Route 78 becomes the Ortega ranch road again, all the way past Santa Ysabel.

I know there is a so-called “Ortega Highway” going east from San Juan Capistrano. But that’s crazy – the real Ortega road appears before me right here as soon as I get over the hump and descend toward Ramona and the vast Ortega Rancho Santa María de Pamó. Pamó was the valley’s main ranchería.

In my heightened state of awareness, I can even see the Ortega ranch house off to the left, in the low ground past Rancho María Lane, looking just like an 1883 lithograph and a photo with an ancient car on the road. Then all the annoying modern traffic and road signs kind of melt away and I feel soothed and free, like it used to be, on an open road as far as the eye can see with rancheros and vaqueros and oxcarts.

José Francisco de Ortega began his ride to greatness with Padre Serra and the Portolá expedition of 1769. As chief scout for Portolá, Ortega was first to sight the magnificent natural harbor of San Francisco Bay and the “Golden Gate.” Cabrillo and Vizcaíno had missed that, owing to fog.

His corporal was Mariano Verdugo, who fought Indians at Vallecito, camped at Cuyamaca, and became mayor of Los Angeles.

According to the first book of baptism, José Francisco’s sixth child (of the same name) was the first non-Indian child born in California. The mother was María Antonia Victoria Carillo, a lady of “great beauty and charm.”

Their offspring included many girls whose “Castilian beauty” was famed as far away as Mexico City, attracting even a General Ramirez (with letters of introduction). Later, many Ortega girls married officers from the invading U.S.

Lieutenant Ortega was comandante of San Diego Royal Presidio in 1781. Padre Serra cajoled Viceroy Bucareli to appoint him Governor in place of Pére Fages. Serra lost that gambit.

Ortega was appointed comandante of the new presidio at Santa Barbara and later the presidio of Monterey. He returned to Loreto to command that first royal presidio of the Californias. Yet, today, Loreto is a wonderfully nostalgic place, exceeded only by San Xavier up in the Gigante mountains.

In 1794, he received one of the few Spanish land grants, for extraordinary service. This became Rancho Nuestra Señora del Refugio, now Refugio State Beach west of Santa Barbara and El Capitan State Beach, named for his final brevet rank. He had been a leading part of the expedition which discovered that place, exceeded only by San Xavier up in the Gigante mountains.

Rancho Refugio was burned by the pirates of Hipolito Bouchard but some adobes survived.

In retirement Ortega died at the beach with Indian friends at Refugio with his riding boots on, at a time when his coast was unfenced, unbuilt, and dotted with grazing cattle. It was a Castilian hidalgo kind of death. It was a good time to die, in a place where he could recall his first expedition of discovery when the soldiers gave witty names to La Gaviota and Carpintería.

These names memorialize a seagull they ate, and a native Chumash boatyard.

Ortega’s scouts rode hours ahead of the main body of the expedition, and were charged with scouting resources, dangers, rancherías, and camp sites. They were the first royal troops to see wonderful landmarks of California.

Ortega’s observations were critical to the eventual siting of missions like San Juan Capistrano and San Buenaventura (Ventura), and the pueblo of Los Angeles.

It was his grandson, José Joaquín, who came to own thousands of acres stretching from west of Ramona to east of Santa Ysabel, and who continued to father some of the loveliest and most charming girls of both Californias.