Salinas: Part Two

Photo courtesy of the National Steinbeck Center, Salinas, California

(You will find Part One of this narrative below this one.)

I arrived in Salinas on Friday afternoon and easily found the old Victorian home I would be staying in. I chose an AirBNB room because it cost me half of what I would have paid at a hotel, and it was located a half mile from the National Steinbeck Center. You know that old saying, “You get what you pay for?” It was exactly true in this situation. Enough said about that.

I met my hostess, dumped my stuff in my room, took a quick shower and changed into jeans, t-shirt and sneaks for my walk downtown. The Steinbeck Center is perfectly located at the far west end of Main Street. There’s a Starbucks across the street (there ya go, tourists), and it’s a classic Main street, with broad sidewalks, shops and restaurants.

Checking in at the Center was easy, and a minute later I was donning my Steinbeck Festival 2019 lanyard which would be my ID for the weekend. Six feet inside the door of the Center is the bookstore, and before I had even completed checking in, I’d seen something I wanted to get for my son-in-law (who loves Steinbeck, too, and I’m going to say “nearly” as much as I do), so that twenty minutes after checking in I was back at the front desk to pay for all the merchandise I’d purchased.

To kick off the festival, the organizers had planned a panel discussion (“Did Americans Ever Get Along?”) with some fancy folks (a Stanford prof, a Cambridge University prof, and Patricia Limerick, a University of Colorado prof—who was lovely and quite a hoot). I had time before that started, so I strolled down Main Street, found a great restaurant that served farm-to-table cuisine, and ate a delicious salad of fresh greens, roasted beets and goat cheese.

Then I strolled back in time for the Big Event—which turned out to be a bust, as far as I was concerned. The Salinas Room of the Center was packed with a couple hundred people by the time I got there, and organizers were bustling around, adding more chairs. I grabbed one near the back in case I felt compelled to duck out later—which I did. If you’re confused by the topic of the discussion, you’re not alone. Each year the committee chooses one of Steinbeck’s writings as the theme for the festival. This year, it was Steinbeck’s last book, America and Americans, a work as timely today as it was in 1966 when it was first published. The book is essentially a long narrative about our social history, how we’ve treated each other (not well) and what needs to change if we are to be successful as a nation (greater inclusion, less disparity in wealth).

But here were these three distinguished persons answering ambiguous questions about an already ambiguous topic from a moderator who was clearly, blatantly, not interested in what the woman had to say. When the discussion reached the point at which she volunteered to answer a question and the moderator asked her brusquely to hold her thought because he wanted to hear what the professor from Stanford had to say in response, I was done. I slipped out, strolled across the lobby to the museum where a wine and cheese after-party had been set up, snagged a glass of wine and chatted with the vintners.

Oh, the museum!

I just can’t describe it. If you’re a lover of Steinbeck, you just must go and stroll through and look and linger and read all the exhibits and see the displays and, in doing so, remember your joy in reading Cannery Row or Sweet Thursday or the agonized journey you shared with the Joad family in Grapes of Wrath or the wisdom you gleaned from East of Eden or the wanderlust you felt while reading Travels with Charley.

Rocinante is there. She is the good old truck with a camper shell Steinbeck drove across America with his dog, Charley. Actually, it was a photograph of Rocinante in Westways Magazine that started me on this journey. I couldn’t believe the old tank was still around—and parked in the museum where everyone could see her. (Actually, during the festival, for a price, you could buy a ticket to be taken inside the camper shell.) On a road trip to Missouri some years ago, I’d listened to Travels with Charley (read by Gary Sinise). I drove my beloved Dodge Ram on that trip, stopping at small towns. The only aspect missing, I thought at the time with great yearning, was a dog.

So there I was, wine glass in hand, staring at the Rocinante, steeped in the memories of that trip to Missouri, witness to the best parts of America, as Steinbeck had been. Oh, that I would have had a good dog as companion for that trip!

To honor Steinbeck’s love of dogs, one of the festival events this year was a dog show, entries open to the public, with the SPCA of Monterey County bringing adoptable dogs to the Center. But all that was scheduled for Saturday, and by the time I’d finished my half-glass of wine and sampled the cheese, grapes and crackers, I was ready to walk the half mile back to my room and fall in bed exhausted.

"I shall take my dog, and that is another reassurance that I am neither dangerous nor insane." --John Steinbeck

Salinas: Part One

Photo courtesy of the Los Padres ForestWatch website

If you are a lover of good books + Nature + solid, suspenseful writing + birds of prey (or a combination of any of those), you might consider reading John Moir’s brilliant narrative, Return of the Condor. It’s educational (Moir is also a teacher of science in addition to being a fine writer), but it’s also tremendously engrossing.

I say all that as preface to this:

When I left Cayucos on the morning of August 2^nd to head to Salinas (scroll two posts back to find that post), I made the decision to travel up the coast along Highway 1. I hadn’t done the drive in twenty years, but it had been so memorable the previous time, I wanted to do it again. [Side note: If you live in California, and you haven’t done the drive, get the hell up there. If you don’t live in Cali but are planning a visit, ya gotta go there.]

Driving up this coastal highway meant driving along the bluffs above the Pacific Ocean, looking down to see waves crashing along the rocks and seabirds flying—for three hours, with no radio reception and no cell reception. If I had remembered to bring my iPod, I could’ve plugged it into my car and listened to my music library—which would’ve had me singing for three hours. But I’d forgotten it. So it was just me and the sea. And let me tell you, I loved every glorious minute of it, over the one-hundred-plus mile trip, through the mist and fog of early morning into the bright sunshine dancing across the surface of the water, blue all the way to the horizon on my left, tall trees and rolling green hills to my right. A bit of heaven, for sure.

As I drove, I frequently saw the shadows of big birds crossing over the top of the car. Along the coast, we have gulls and huge brown pelicans and ravens and peregrine falcons—the same as most coastlines. But in California, we also have—because of the controversial but now successful captive breeding program—California Condors, the biggest bird you’ll ever see in the wild. (They have a ten-foot wingspan. Ten. feet. Go ahead. Take a moment; try to imagine it.)

Reading John Moir’s book some years ago raised my awareness of the treasure that these big ugly flying dinosaurs are. (They eat the large dead aquatic animals that wash up on shore.) And it also made me aware that (now, finally) there are places in California where we can spot them—more and more, actually, as their numbers continue to recover.

So there I was, driving along, joyfully singing some tune a cappella, when I looked up at just the right moment in just the right spot to see two young but fully feathered California Condors riding the thermals above me. Booyah! Then I wasn’t singing anymore, I was shouting. I’ve been birdwatching since I was in elementary school. To have seen two of these gigantic creatures in the wild on such a day just tipped my joy over into the jubilee zone. Oh my goodness!! I felt incredibly blessed. In fact, I felt as if my ancestors had sent them as a sign: ‘Here ya go, girl. Be safe on your travels, and know that even though mistakes have been made, and the environment has not been cared for as it should have been, and you have often grieved that, we are here behind the scenes, trying to help make things right. Keep believing. Keep spreading the word.’

And so I will.

As you go about your busy day, please be mindful that there are creatures—big and small—that have been placed in our care. It is inherent in our own gift of life that we continue to be good stewards over them. Amen and amen.

Click on the title of John Moir's book in the first paragraph if you're interested in reading it. You can pick up a used paperback copy for about five bucks.

Or, if you just want to see more pictures of California Condors and learn more about them, click here.

PSA

I'm interrupting my previously scheduled blog post (about my further adventures in Salinas) to bring you a public service announcement. It's the same one I've made before... but bear with me.

About an hour south of Salinas is a small community known as King. In it, just off Highway 101, is a fairly large truck stop, and in the middle of the truck stop is a fairly small eatery called the Wild Horse Cafe. (Thus the rearing horse in the photo above.) This was where I stopped for breakfast at 8:00 this morning. You know when you walk in the door of a cafe of this type that if you see plenty of battered trucks outside and plenty of dusty boots dragged up to the counter inside, you're going to get some mighty fine breakfast (which I did, quickly and with salsa on the side).

You also know, in a place like this, you're probably going to see signs like this:

This picture says it all: "God, Guns & Guts Made America Free/Let's Keep It That Way" over a background of our flag, a bald eagle and a man toting a long-barreled gun.

I had already become aware of the shooting in Dayton when I checked my phone at 5:30a.m. for news. Since my son now lives in Dayton, Ohio, you can imagine what reading that news did to my heart rate, which only slowed down a little after he immediately responded to my text message to say he was okay. He followed that with, "Yeah, it's crazy; I've been to that bar before." That's when the tears came. No, it wasn't my son this time. But it could've been. And certainly, it was somebody else's son, somebody else's daughter.

By the time I sat down to coffee, scrambled eggs and home fries, I was determined to take as many deep breaths as might be necessary to get through my breakfast without crying in a small diner surrounded by strangers. Then the gentleman sitting in the booth behind me suddenly jumped up and shouted, "There's been another mass shooting! This one's in Dayton!" He held his cell phone aloft and looked around for a response, whereupon the gentleman sitting one booth away replied loudly, "And they wanna take our guns away? Not mine they don't."

Sigh. 

Not satisfied with that response, the phone wielding gentleman then approached three weathered crop beaters sitting at the counter and showed them the news. One of them glanced at the phone, then leaned into the anxious man's side and began to tell him quietly that he could not trust at all what he saw on the news. "A lot of times they just make that stuff up," he said emphatically.

I wish, oh how I wish, that I were making this up, that this were a fictional story that just came to me while I sat in that isolated diner losing my appetite.

Nope, not a chance. It happened just like that, folks. The first man finally sat down and continued to stare at his phone, occasionally blurting out further details as he continued reading about the carnage.

And I sat. I remained anchored. Time ticked by. What I wanted to say was, "No one wants to take your guns, sir, unless you have an AK-style weapon that you're planning on using to kill people who don't look or think like you." But I didn't. Like our lawmakers, I simply sat and did nothing.

So, since we're still not going to change anything in America in regard to guns, here's my advice:

From now on, whenever you travel to a public place, whether it's a mall or a school or a nightclub or an outdoor concert or a museum, always check for exits when you arrive, as I did this weekend at the Steinbeck Festival. I found the back door of the center easily, saw that it led to an enclosed patio, and determined that, with some effort, I could go up and over the wall if need be.

If you have young children, explain to them that if someone begins shooting, they are not to wait for you, they must run as fast as they can as far as they can away from the gunshots and not stop to look at anything or anyone. You can always be reunited with them later if you manage to survive. If you don't survive, well, the sooner they adjust to someone else looking after them, the better, I suppose.

If you're still of the belief that a man with a gun can be stopped by another man with a gun, please keep in mind that yesterday's shooting occurred in Texas, an "open carry" state. The perpetrator opened fire on women and children and old people. Where were the men with guns to stop him?

Speaking of that, decide in advance if you would really risk your life to save someone or you're just going to run. You'll lose critical seconds being indecisive. I will not forget the interview with the woman in El Paso who said, 'I was trying to help a very elderly woman, but she just couldn't move fast enough, so I left her behind, because the shooter was getting closer.'

I honestly had to ask myself how I would feel if my daughter sacrificed her life to save an old woman, which, believe me, I'm pretty sure she'd do, because she has this thing for old people, and she's pretty badass and stubborn--if she didn't take out the shooter with her teacher voice--"Put that [expletive] gun down right now!"--she'd find a way to help the old woman. But at what price? If the old woman survived, her family would have her for a few more years. If my daughter were killed, she'd be lost to her husband, her children, her eventual grandchildren, and a mother who would never know joy again.

But these are the moral dilemmas we must sort through in advance. Because when the bullets start flying again--and we all know it's only a matter of time before the next mass shooting occurs, maybe in your town, maybe in mine--we will not have time to consider escape routes or reflect upon who is needed more in this life. We will have a handful of seconds to react. We'd best be ready.

Cayucos

The ocean, for me, has a healing quality just as powerful as walking in a forest among tall trees and birdsong. If you've read The Dogs Who Saved Me, you know that I grew up near the ocean, and when I was younger, in my worst times, I retreated there--first by bike, then later by car.

That didn't change when I grew into middle age. I still went to the ocean for solace, even though I lived much farther from it, and nowadays the bit of the ocean I visit isn't in Southern California, it's along the Central Coast. If you've never been there, just trust me when I say, it's a magical place. If your soul needs healing, go there.

When I decided to attend the annual Steinbeck Festival, I thought I might stay over in Cayucos on my way up to Salinas. If you're unfamiliar, Cayucos is the little town just north of Morro Bay. It's the home of the Brown Butter Cookie Company, and the beach front boasts a long, beautiful pier that stretches out into deep water.

The last time I drove to Morro Bay, up Interstate 101, it took me seven hours--a trip that should take five hours if you slow down a bit to appreciate the ocean out your driver's side window. So this time, I drove the back roads--through Palmdale, up, around, over and across on several two-lane highways, just me and the agricultural trucks rolling along. It was great. With all the meandering I did, it still only took me five hours, and I drove some beautiful country roads, especially when I got closer to the coast.

At 4:00p.m., I checked into my very clean and spacious room at the Cayucos Beach Inn, took a quick shower, then walked downtown--a half-mile stroll--for dinner.

The restaurant I had intended to patronize was closed, so I strolled another quarter mile to the Cass House. This is what I ate:

Focaccia baked on site with warm, rosemary-infused olive oil and sea salt 

Roasted cauliflower in lemon yogurt with toasted almonds, mint and pomegranate vinaigrette  

Flourless chocolate torte with sea salt

Just to be clear, I only ate half the torte. I saved the other half for the next day. Needless to say, I was a pretty happy, relaxed camper when I strolled out onto the pier after dinner. From there, I could see all the way down the coast to Morro Rock in Morro Bay.

I slept deeply and comfortably that night. The next morning, Friday, I awoke to fog shrouding the town and the beach. Hurrah! This is my favorite weather for walking the beach. I went down about 7:00, and, no surprise, on the wide expanse of beach I found dog prints right away. Through the mist, I could make out the outlines of a few canines and their humans. And then, looming up from the sand, I saw what might have been a rock... but very well could have been a sleeping dragon.

Since I am currently working on a children's series that includes a dragon and is loosely set in Cayucos, I took this sighting as a very good sign.

If--when--I return, will the dragon still be there? I do not know. I do know that I will not wait long to walk on the beach again. That hour ambling along the sand, peering into fresh tide pools, greeting the happy dogs who greeted me in return, listening to the susurration of the surf's rhythm toward me and away, healed my soul a bit and gave me as a take-home gift a basketful of tranquility.