La Honda

La_Honda_CA_Downtown

La Honda is a census-designated place (CDP) in southern San Mateo County, California, United States. The population was 928 at the 2010 census. It is located in the Santa Cruz Mountains between Silicon Valley and the Pacific coast of California. La Honda is near the La Honda Creek Open Space Preserve and State Route 84 on the ocean side of the Coastal Range.

Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (pages of which were written all over the restroom wall of his La Honda residence) and other books, owned a home in La Honda, which served as the base of operations for The Merry Pranksters where they used LSD and other drugs.[4] The escapades of Kesey and the Merry Pranksters are documented in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, which describes the wildly painted school bus, ‘Furthur’, driven by Neal Cassady, who had been the hyperkinetic driver in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.

The La Honda house where Kesey’s adventures became famous—one mile (1.6 km) west of Apple Jack’s Inn—has been faithfully restored after years of neglect and a near catastrophic flood in 1998, although the road sign on the bridge no longer exists: “No Left Turn Unstoned”.[citation needed] In the last few years, La Honda has become known for its wine grape vineyards, most notably Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese planted by La Honda Winery (of Redwood City) just north of California State Route 84 above the Red Barn.