Monday, August 29 - Salinas, California
In which we stop, take a day off from driving, and visit family.
Salinas Valley, California. Steinbeck country.
If all goes well, by Monday August 29 midday, we will arrive at the gf’s mom’s place in Salinas. We will rest, visit family, and take a day off from driving on Tuesday. Then it’s back on the road again on Wednesday, for the last of our trip, two days driving up the center of California, Oregon, and into Seattle. At that point, we plan to caravan, each of us driving a car.
As a southern Californian, I have little experience with the central valley of California except for passing through on the way to Sequoia and Yosemite, frequent vacation spots. California is a big, beautiful state, and there’s so much to see. I went to San Francisco once when I was quite young, about 4 years old, and the Golden Gate Bridge made an enormous impression on me. But I didn’t get back until I was in my early 30s, living in Kansas, dating and going through a divorce. I traveled to Sacramento to attend a wedding of internet friends and a group of us took a quick road trip into San Francisco.
As an adult, I’ve made several trips into the bay area, and I even lived for one 4-month stretch in a condo a 10 minute walk from Monterey bay. I took daily walks to the beach with my young dachshund, Herman, who loathed the water in Connecticut but took to the surf and the sand of Monterey Bay. We will be living near a lake in Seattle where there’s both a human swimming area and a dog beach. I hope Herman takes to the water and beach life yet again.
At this point, I hope the road trip has gone well and that we’ve taken our time and are safe and well rested. I won’t be doing a lot of writing during the trip, but I’m keeping my guitar handy and loading up on some podcasts and audiobooks for the trip. I do have a couple of books in my bag for when the driving is done for the day.
Do you have any experience with Salinas, or with Steinbeck’s salinas valley novels?
I will report in from the road to see how closely our experience matches when we is posted here.
Until then, I’ll . . .
Just keep driving/writing/rest-stopping … lighitng out for the West.\