Steinbeck’s California

I’ve discovered several personal camping truths-

– I need my wide brimmed hiking hat, caps just don’t cut it.
-I like bottles over camelbaks.
-I’m never spinning in circles around some little town looking for a laundromat again.
-and I need a map.

A real map, like in the olden days.  A borrowed, never updated, Garmin is a recipe for a feud, so I gently forced my husband to stop and get his wife a map.  I’m sure he thought I was completely backward to want one because he brought me the “special” map with lots of cartoon pictures of tourist sites for children or something.  It was like the “You are here” maps at Astroworld; only instead of pictures of The Bamboo Shoot ride, there were California highlights.

It’s a good thing, too, because we decided then to make The Steinbeck House one of our Coastal destinations.

 We were staying in the area The Grapes of Wrath was set in, then drove from Yosemite to Hollister, the scene for Travels with Charley.  We passed through the hills and patchwork of farms and ranches near Salinas that inspired the backdrop for East of Eden and The Red Pony (this book was one of the first gifts I ever gave my husband.)   It’s the same valley that Of Mice and Men was set in, further south, and it really was beautiful.  It finished off the last of my preconceived notions about California.

I read that the Chamber of Commerce in Monterey was horrified when Cannery Row was published because it seemed to cast a seedy light on their city.  Of course, the Cannery Row was seedy, but in years since the city has learned to embrace, and exploit, the color his novels gave them.  There is Steinbeck hype all over the place…

and very little seediness.

 We walked the length of this strip, seeing the old Wing Chong Market (called Lee Chong’s in the book)

 All of the old canneries are now restaurants and souvenir shops.  That part kind of made me think of Galveston and shirts with big, red shark bites taken out of them for sale.  The coast, however, was very different.

 This was the view from our table at the Fishhopper.

 And it was COLD.  After getting some hot chocolate, we drove along the coast to Pacific Grove’s Perkins Park footpath where my well-meaning daughter and her bread crumbs were accosted by some very intimidating sea gulls.

 This path leads to a tidepool where the real and fictional Doc collected specimens.  (I know how dorky I sound.  Let me just push my thick glasses up the bridge of my nose now and clear my throat.  There, that’s better.)

It’s so foreign to us- this foggy, rocky coast.  My son loves to climb on rocks and could’ve played there, climbing and looking for groundhogs in the wildflowers, until dark.