Prunedale, Prunedale, CA

Prunedale sits along Highway 101 in northern Monterey County, with Salinas to the south and Gilroy farther up the freeway to the north. The name is usually traced to an early try at growing prunes, though nothing on paper settles it. Behind the shopping centers on Vierra Canyon Road the land climbs into oak woodland, and roads wander off along San Miguel Canyon and Castroville Boulevard. Most of the area is rural residential. Listings tend to come with several acres, sometimes a little over four beneath the oaks, and plenty are sold as horse properties with stables. Single-family houses are the norm, and neighbors are often out of sight of each other. Manzanita County Park on Castroville Boulevard has sports fields and hillside trails with views across the valleys, and riders use it as well as hikers. Royal Oaks Park opened in 1966 as the county's first. Elkhorn Slough is a drive west for water, birds and sea otters. Mornings start on Vierra Canyon Road. Country Kitchen is the diner there for breakfast, burgers and a Cobb salad, and Gourmet Central Bakery sells croissants, pastries and coffee in a small shopping center. Garden Variety Cheese runs a working sheep dairy on San Miguel Canyon Road and makes cheese and yogurt from its own flock, with farm dinners and open house days through the year. Groceries are handled by Safeway, Grocery Outlet and Royal Oaks Market, and the Prunedale Branch Library is in the same part of town. Nothing outside the shopping centers is walkable, so every day starts with a car. Highway 101 runs north to Gilroy and south to Salinas, and the Highway 156 interchange is where coast-bound traffic and carpoolers peel away. All that distance is the price of the lot sizes. A dinner out takes a drive, and so does almost everything else. The reward in Prunedale is acreage and oak cover that begin a few minutes from the highway.