Day 10: Salinas, Steinbeck Museum, Gilroy of Garlic, &Henry W.Coe S.P.

Monday
I left Pinnacles in the early morning, noting as I passed that HL's site was already empty. Back out along the dry hills, the phone came back to life with messages. I stopped in King City and went back once more to the laundromat, this time hoping that by washing the duvet cover I could improve the atmosphere inside the van. It wasn't exactly reeking, but I could tell I was not the first one to live in this tiny box --- and besides, I love this laundromat. It's my only chance to get caught up with Spanish cartoons. Now I could also listen to the sound track of a video clip from my daughter: snow geese chattering to each other on tidal flats along the coast of British Columbia.

By early afternoon I reached Salinas and the National Steinbeck Center. As I bought my ticket in the large atrium just inside the doors, I noticed attendants putting away folding chairs. The man at the counter informed me they had just had state dignitaries and journalists on hand for an official naming ceremony: Route 101 through the Salinas Valley is now The John Steinbeck Highway. A life-size   paper doll of John based on an old B&W photo still stood there at the podium. He would have hated this event, as I learned by paying attention to the exhibits.  I hope being dead makes it easier to bear.

I made my way first into a small room to watch a couple of short movies about Steinbeck's life, then on into the exhibition space. It's a nightmare of a place, a bit like a page out of Yahoo, with so many talking exhibits all going at once within earshot of each other that it's hard to concentrate. I can't imagine what this would be like for someone with worse problems than mine in filtering out the extraneous.

 I lingered over one handwritten letter to his editor. Every day before sitting down to write East of Eden, JS would write another letter to his editor. The one I saw was early, describing how the book was written for his sons to read when they were older. He felt he might have started this book earlier in his life, but it would not have been the same book, for it is written by and requires a reader of some maturity. It treats of good-evil, beauty-ugliness, kindness-cruelty, all the classic opposing pairs that we use to describe our world. His sons were so young that they only knew the Salinas River, the river of his own youth, a river which he says he himself does not love. He has discovered other rivers. Some people, he goes on, never know that there is another river beyond the one they know: they never do mature.

From Salinas I was undecided how far to travel, and stayed undecided until the last minute. I kept going north and came to a sign for the town of Gilroy, "Garlic Capital of the World." Another sign for something called Gilroy Gardens attracted my attention and I began to follow that trail. With some areas of road construction and detours it was an uncertain journey as I looked constantly for more of the non-committal signs urging me onward but not revealing the remaining distance.  I was strung along further and further and was at last pleased to arrive at the large entrance gates. This must be a massive garden!  Now, to my horror, I discovered the thing I had been naively chasing was  a "family theme park." How many miles had I wasted on this?

I backed up as quickly as I could, and soon found something much closer to my heart in San Martin: a large farm market called LJB Farms on Fitzgerald Ave. There I piled up apples and tomatoes and admired a tree beside my parking spot that bore persimmons the size of softballs.

Again I had the question how far to go today. It was late afternoon already.  I could drive all the way back up across the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin County or I could take a chance on finding camping at a park a few miles east of the highway called Henry W. Coe State Park. What I knew so far about the park was this: it is approached by 11 miles of steep, winding unpaved road, has only 19 campsites and they were not answering their phone.

Reminding myself this is all an adventure, I chanced my luck on the park. When I arrived at the right exit off Hwy 101 --- oh, alright: the John Steinbeck -- the iPhone said it would take almost an hour and a half to get to the park, but I tried not to believe that.

It was a long haul, as it turned out. It probably did take over an hour, though gauging that is so hard in the circumstances: eyes on the road, hands on the wheel, foot on the gas, winding up and up and up we went, Neetie and I. I kept telling myself to enjoy the beauty, take it in good heart if I got to the end and found "Campground Full." I passed a camper on its way down the hill. What did that mean? I passed a truck with a cap on the bed. Was that a would-be camper also turned away at the gate? RELAX, enjoy the view.

After all that internal yabber, what I found was this: a fabulous hilltop spread, an old barn, a bunkhouse, a reclusive ranger who never could be found, and a campground that was completely empty. The place was silent. No human noise. Silent and warm, like an assurance of a home you never knew you had but which is here and ready to wrap you and hold you while you melt into its peace.

I sat under the posada at the picnic table that evening, eating my dinner by the light of the moon. She had risen in the sky to just about face-level, a guest at my table who stopped in to share a meal and muse over the day. She didn't make much noise. She did keep me awake that night, though:  I did not sleep well until she had set in the early morning.