Saturday morning found Grasshopper and I in front of the Our Lady of the Wayside Church in Portola Valley.

Before us is the 1912 chapel designed by Timothy L. Pflueger in a Spanish Mission Revival style. Plflueger is best know as a designer of art deco movie palaces such as the Castro, Alameda, and Paramount Theatres.

The chapel is believed to be the first building that Pflueger designed, and he was just 19 years old.

I immediately understood the language of this building, having sketched all of California’s 21 Spanish missions (and a few Mission Revival buildings like the Burlingame Depot). This chapel is influenced by Mission Dolores in San Francisco. The arches, bell alcoves, tiled roofs, and angled buttresses were like sketching an old friend.

After sketching the chapel and adding watercolor, I looked at the California Historical Landmark plaque. Our Lady of the Wayside Church is Landmark No. 909.

Our next stop is another California Historical Landmark in Portola Valley. In this case: Casa de Tableta, Landmark No. 825.

Now known as the Alpine Inn, this building was a tavern and gambling joint for the Californios on their way to the coast. In was eventually bought by an American where it served as a roadhouse and a saloon. It is one of California’s oldest drinking establishments, having opened in about 1852.

On August 27, 1976, the Alpine Inn made history when a group of scientists from Stanford sent an electronic message from a computer while in the picnic area of the inn to Boston. This message, according to the plaque on the building, marked “the beginning of the Internet Age”.