Day 15 -- Visiting Salinas from our camp in Greenfield, California -- 65 Miles

Today we got to do something that we didn't even know before this morning that we wanted to do! I had been scanning the atlas for quite awhile in hopes of finding some historic place of interest we could visit as we traveled up Hwy 101 in California. But only this morning did I consult the Web for points of interest in Salinas. Almost immediately up popped the John Steinbeck Center as well as the Steinbeck boyhood home. Wow, I thought, what a find.

Traveling to Salinas from our Greenfield camp was only a trip of about 32 miles. So after a leisurely breakfast, we set out to learn about one of America's most celebrated authors. The museum is arranged in the modern style with lots of interactive displays, audio and visual input, and a sort of non-linear course through the building. Most of the verbiage was extra large and easily readable. There are dioramas, antiques, and even vehicles that you could touch. There was even a reconstructed boxcar to go along with a short story about the author's life (photo left).

Both Concetta and I had read a few of Steinbeck's books. She had read "Travels with Charley, of Mice and Men, and the Grapes of Wrath." I had read the latter two and probably a couple more. But we had no idea how extensive the list is of all John's published works. We both felt that considering how much we enjoyed the several books we'd both had read, it was curious that we hadn't pursued many more.

We were actually all set to grab a few of the trade paperbacks that we saw in the giftshop, but the $16.00 price tag deterred us. We decided that we'd just have to search on Ebay for what we wanted in the future.

In terms of a future visit by anyone reading this narrative, if you have a large RV as we do, the Amtrak station parking lot is adjacent to the center (across the street) and when we arrived, it being a Saturday, we found NO cars there. The only other vehicle we found was a big yellow tip truck for moving cars. I'm sure the lot fills up on normal workdays, but even then I suspect that you'd be able to fit your RV into the spaces furthest from the station.

Also mentioned on the Web was the John Steinbeck boyhood home that can be found just a couple of miles from the Steinbeck Center. We learned that the building now serves as a restaurant, but it's gift shop welcomes the browsing public. We motored over to the house and were really impressed with how well the present owner is caring for the old building. I walked over to take a few photos and failed to see a single flaw in the paintwork or landscaping.

After leaving the Steinbeck home I once again started thinking about the need for gas and the need to find a tire guy to do a little job for us. After one aborted attempt at gas, we found a station across the street that was better able to accommodate us. Once the tank was good to go I focused on the continuing tire problem. The truck has a pronouced toe-in, toe-out problem especially on the passenger side. This causes the rig to ride predominently on the inside edge of each front tire.

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This problem was also present in our last Ford rig and seems to be endemic in the Ford van model. On our earlier rig we had to stop in Kansas on one trip and have the tires "flipped" so that the inside edge became the outside edge. This left a more or less brand new tire edge for the rig to ride upon over the balance of the trip.

So when Concetta turned up an open tire store in the town of Gonzales just minutes from our camp, I headed right there. Once we arrived in Gonzales, we had only fifteen minutes to reach the store before it closed. But, it took us nearly that entire time to roll into their parking area. Unfortunately, as we stopped we could see that the sole remaining employee had just locked up the door and was headed for his truck.

But we were about to experience yet another miracle in the luck department. The employee, whose name appeared to be Chutz, agreed to open back up, remove the worst tire on the passenger side, and reverse it on the wheel for us. He did the whole job with a big smile on his face and not a great deal of money. We thanked him profusely and we were soon back on Hwy 101 headed for our evening camp.

Tomorrow we're headed for Gilroy a couple of hours north of us and perhaps another of Father Junipero Serra's missions. We have already lined up a camp in Gilroy so we don't need to worry about finding a camp site on this holiday weekend. We're going to be navigating a very rural "scenic byway" which usually tend to be windy, narrow, and constantly changing elevation. But they also tend to be beautiful beyond description.

Beyond tomorrow we have not the slightest idea of our intended direction. So stick around and travel with us and we'll find out together. So Ciao for now and we wish you many happy travels of your own.