In my Church of the Roadtrip, there is a special place of honor for the Blessed Kerouac. And William Least Heat-Moon is awaiting canonization. But John Steinbeck has now been elevated to Patron Saint. Of course you can look at The Grapes of Wrath as a roadtrip — in the same way as The Odyssey — but in the end, it’s a trip you only want to take through the pages of a book. No, it’s Travels With Charley that gets Steinbeck on the altar. In his final book, John Steinbeck — sensing his impending death and believing that nothing lay beyond it — decided to take a valedictory trip around America — which some may argue, as personified by the Salinas Valley in particular, is one of the greatest and recurring characters in his books. He outfitted a camper shell on the back of a truck, mapped out a route through small towns and wide open spaces, and picked his elderly Blue French Poodle, Charles le Chien or Charley, as his companion. Since, in 1960, such things were not done, especially among aging and wealthy authors, Steinbeck noted that Charley served an important purpose even before the trip began: “I shall take my dog and that is another reassurance that I am neither dangerous nor insane.”
I’ve always loved the resulting book, even as it veered from celebratory to melancholy. I gained an even greater appreciation of it at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas. Pull quotes on the wall and a special exhibit underscored how multi-faceted Travels with Charley is. The special exhibit was a film and exhibition by photographer Randy Wells. For a dozen years, he’s retraced Steinbeck and Charley’s trip, illustrating photographically the questions about America and Americans that Steinbeck set out to find. The film is wonderful, liberally sprinkled with Steinbeck quotes and including hundreds of Wells photographs. Then you can tour an exhibit area and see framed prints of some of the best photographs. The rest of the museum is really geared toward families with children, but particularly good is one of the permanent collections walking you through the agricultural history of Salinas Valley. It’s surprising how it illuminates Steinbeck, although I’d argue that he is much more than just a California author. In another multimedia display, Steinbeck’s wife notes how she has traveled the world extensively and never landed in a place where she couldn’t find a translation of one, if not most, of Steinbeck’s books.
I should note here that my original plan for this trip was to do it with a Smooth Fox Terrier, until Lucy, who is a better traveler than Oscar, went into a neurotic episode after hearing mating deer bang their antlers against trees all night in Sonoma. She had to sit out this trip. But after revisiting Travels With Charley, I’m already planning the next trip where Dog will be my co-pilot. And in retrospect, a journey with a dog would be a very different kind of trip than the Mission Mission.
And about those artichokes. With all my missions behind me and Steinbeck under my belt, I thought I’d indulge myself in a little roadside kitsch. So I headed for Castroville and the World’s Largest Artichoke. But as I traveled up 101 trying to process this trip, it suddenly didn’t feel right to end it with a 20-foot vegetable. That will have to be another roadtrip.
In the meantime, stay tuned as I recap in upcoming posts some of the many things that didn’t fit into my road posts.

I'll leave you with this display from the History of Salinas exhibit honoring Marylin Monroe who was Castroville's first Artichoke Queen. Bet you didn't know that.
ADDENDUM: See some of Randy Wells photos here, many of which were in the Travels with Charley exhibit.
I haven’t reread any Steinbeck in years. I owe his legacy a look back – I really enjoyed everything of his that I did read, which included Of Mice and Men, Travels With Charley, Cannery Row, and Grapes of Wrath.
My family had a couple of vacations in the SF area years ago when I was a preteen and then a teenager. We stayed at my aunt and uncle’s place in Walnut Creek. My mother and aunt were big Steinbeck fans, so we actually drove to the old Cannery Row just to say we’d been there. We also went on a mission tour. At the time, I was too young to appreciate what I was seeing. Fisherman’s Wharf and Chinatown made a big impression, though.
I’ve sure enjoyed your mission series – it brought back a bunch of memories.
Thanks for the Steinbeck visit. I also love Travels with Charley. Need to read Cannery Row, finally.
I’ve just added Left Coast Cowboys gadget to igoogle homepage. Thought you would like to know that. New computer, jumped from XP to Windows 7.
The Steinbeck center is wonderful. I drove a bunch of kids there on a field trip last year. Worth the 3 hour drive. We also had a nice tour of historical Salinas.
Travels with Charley is now on my reading list.
Oh, I don’t know, I think that would have been a fun ending. Hoping that Lucy will be up for your next trip.
My husband and I visited the Steinbeck Center on the 23rd. We actually went especially to see the Marilyn painting. It was done by John Cerney. His giant farmers are all over Salinas. We had happened to see one or two as we were whizzing by on HWY 101 when we were in the area a couple of years ago. A Google search identified the artist. This year we came to Salinas to find as many of his pieces as we could. Marilyn was the latest find. We found around 25 or more of his giants. Cerney has works up on Cannery Row (in honor of Steinbeck and the cannery workers) as well as at the Bunny Farm. We’re camped in Felton now. We now want to get audiobooks of some of Steinbeck’s books to listen to as we wend our way home to San Diego in a few days. I emailed Mr. Cerney to tell him how much pleasure we had had from this trip. He sent a very nice note in return saying that he’s going to install some paintings in Italy in the spring. It’s been a great road trip.
Sandy, Thanks for the info on the giant farmer pictures. I love those and always wanted to photograph some of them — especially the one with a farmer and his terrier. Unfortunately there are just no good safe turnouts on that stretch of 101 so there are few photo ops.
Lisa,
The Bunn(y) farm on HWY 68 entering Monterey from Salinas has his most well known farmers. There are about 10 of them there. It’s an organic farm with a little market. You can get out an photograph the giants there. We also took a tour of the farm as well. Also on 68 just before you get to the farm is his ‘Foxy’ piece. It takes up the side of a building. Just on the other side of 68 heading east and before you get to the farm you will see just an arm with a cowboy hat in the air coming out of the bushes. We found all these just by accident as we were driving around. According to his website, the Old Woman on the Hill, which is on 101 just south of King City was his largest pieces. I have lots of blurry photos of her because you’re right. There is no safe place to pull off for a photo op.
http://www.johncerney.com