From Redding to Cambria

Leaving Redding yesterday, Ethan bid a fond adieu to his fan club, the maids at the Oxford Inn. We discovered shortly after leaving Redding that we wouldn't be visiting Kevin and Erica after all. Erica had emergency surgery but is hopefully fine now, and we wish her well and hope to see them another time.

A long ride down I-5 in end-of-holiday weekend traffic made us all cranky, including Ethan. Stops were minimal because it was very hot for Ethan, but we crossed the Cascades again and headed towards Monterey Bay, stopping in Watsonville, Garlic Capitol of the World. Not because we wanted to stop in Watsonville but because we were too tired to go on and try to find something in Monterey.

The historic highway from I5 to Watsonville was four-lane and beautiful. Leaving the agricultural area south of Sacramento, we approached hills and irrigated truck farms. The first 20 minutes were easy driving and then...California holiday traffic jammed up and we came almost to a dead stop. The next hour took us twenty minutes where highway traffic, predominately holiday traffic -- campers, RV's, boats -- mimicked the congestion of California overpopulation.

Once that was behind us, we entered Steinbeck Country, the lands and towns that Steinbeck wrote about in East of Eden and Of Mice and Men. We grabbed a Motel 6 on the outskirts, asking for a room in my bad Spanish (no Ingles se hablan aqui). Oddly enough, the motel had towels the size of washcloths, and few amenities but I would have to vote it "best of" for showerhead, a real boon on the road, especially after sleeping on a Motel 6 bed. We got out of there as early as we could, taking a secondary road through truck farming country to Salinas, 17 miles east of Monterey.

It was here that Steinbeck was born and spent his childhood, and here that the state-of-the-art Steinbeck center recounts his life and works. Some of you may remember that one of the original inspirations for this current Roadtrip came from Travels with Charley, which Steinbeck wrote in 1962 about a trip around the country with his black Standard Poodle, Charley, in a jerry-rigged camper. It was in this book, written when he was Jim's age (57) that he recounts his reacquaintance with a country that fame had isolated him from, a country where racial tensions were at a peak and interstates were starting to bypass America's small towns.

The road to Salinas is loaded with truck farms. It was picking time, and the workers were out in force, hooded sweatshirts against the morning fog and damp. This was the setting for The Grapes of Wrath, where Steinbeck used fictional accounts to share with readers the plight of migrant workers. No doubt there is still a lot of exploitation, and when I watched the back-breaking picking going on I recognized that we still have a lot of fixing to do when it comes to the disenfranchised and poor. How disconcerting to look at all the bounty that this fertile valley offers -- apples, berries, vegetables of all description -- and think that this bounty gets picked and to market on the backs of people who have no choice but to pick for a living.

Castroville is the Artichoke Capitol of the World, so we stopped at a restaurant and fruitstand marked by a giant artichoke. French fried artichokes didn't appeal at 9:30 in the morning, but I did get a picture of the giant artichoke before a tour bus full of German tourists showed up and took the place over.

On to Salinas and the Steinbeck Center and Home, and my love of Steinbeck vastly renewed, I resolve to read nothing but Steinbeck for the next year. From the plight of migrant workers in Grapes of Wrath, to the autobiographical East of Eden, to his stories as a war correspondent to his treatment of King Arther and Joan of Arc, I don't believe there is another American writer who so consistently entertained, informed, and inflamed. For more information on Steinbeck's life and works, and the controversies surrounding his work, take a look at this website:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1962/steinbeck-bio.html

Monterey Bay was cool and sunny, and the pathways along the waterfront meant that Ethan got a terrific walk, meeting other dogs along the way. We pushed on to Carmel, staying at the European-style Hofsas House with its painted mural and beautifully furnished rooms. A walk through town was Ethan's idea of heaven. Nearly everywhere is dog-friendly, including the beach and the stores, and in the shoe store I caught him looking in the mirror and admiring himself. He truly does think he is King of the Road.

Off the beaten path on a side street is Le Escargot, a tiny restaurant that is truly in the French bistro tradition. Our prix fixe meals were as follows: Jim - Pistou soup, a rich blend of vegetables, white beans, and pesto in a tomato-fennel broth; perfect broiled leg of lamb with ratatouie and garlic mashed potatoes, and a creme brulee for dessert. For me, a homemade pate that has made me rethink my opinion of pate as braunschweiger; seafood pasta in saffron broth rich with clams, mussels, and shrimp; and an apple tartin. The wine Jim picked, thinking that we could not go wrong with a 2003 Bordeaux, was a Larousse de Geraud Saint Julien. Excellent.
A stop in the Hogsbreath Inn and REstaurant, the CLint-Eastwood tourist trip in downtown Carmel for overpriced brandies. To give you some idea how good the meal, wine, and brandies were, we went back to the room and howled hysterically at "Dumb and Dumber" on TV. Dumb and dumber, indeed. I was as foggy as the air this morning.

Highway 1 through Big Sur defies description. I recall my first visit in 1976, and several subsequent visits. The majesty of the cliffs, and the sea crashing below, and the deep ravines and sudden drop-offs continue to be awe-inspiring, despite my vertigo and the sweating bottoms of my feet every time I get out of the car. Jim is an adept driver on such roads, and I am glad, because it allows me to throughly enjoy the scenery. We visit Nepenthe, high on a hill. (Everyone and their dog does, literally.) We visit the Henry Miller Memorial and Museum. This is a strange place, always silent and wild artwork -- dead TV's stacked on one another outside with a sign that says Y2K, a carved mannequin...the bookstore is dark today, and the only person on the premises sits outside with a balalaika, strumming the same three chords over and over again. A sign at the mike announces "Open Mike Tonight," but the power is out (hence the dark bookstore) and since I have never in my visits here heard anyone say anything, the Open Mike announcement is puzzling.

A stop at the Ragged Point Inn, where we once stayed and where Ethan goes insane for the second time today, lunging at a biker, is known as the gatway to Big Sur, and after a few more miles of winding road the fog lists and we head to Cambria, a small arts community, to stay at the Pine Tree Inn, where Jim insists that I get a hot stone massage (awesome, by the way..I recommend it) and we enjoy the organic vegetables that are grown on the place at dinner. There's music after dinner in the lounge, and a woman on a well-seasoned Martin acoustic guitar is wailing. It's like any lodge in the West -- antlered light fixtures, an animal head over the huge fireplace, and vacationing couples and a few locals enjoying an after-dinner brandy and some music before retiring to their cabins in the piney woods. The only difference is, Jim and I are one of the few hetero couples. This is a predominantly lesbian crowd, and the female energy in the lounge contrasts with the setting.

Tomorrow, on to LA to visit my sister, Laura, and her family: her husband Shawn and sons Logan, Daniel, Ben, and Fionne.