Field trip! Red Pony Ranch and Salinas

Today, the group piled into two 15-person passenger vans to embark on our first major outing to the interior California landscape. Steinbeck is lauded for his richness of description and a consistently passionate treatment of his characters' environment. Our excursion, to me, built up a tactile appreciation for the land Steinbeck lovingly depicted. The best fiction, it seems, is never too far from factuality when it came to his work.

Our first stop was at the "Red Pony Ranch," a privately owned residence approximately 10 miles outside of Salinas, California (where Steinbeck was born and subsequently spent the first 18 years of his life). The owners/caretakers were there to see us off to an hour or so of meandering about their property... driving off in a tattered pickup truck, one rancher quipped "we love Steinbeck!" as he piloted his well-used steed down the dusty dirt trail. Susan Shillinglaw, benefactor/co-director of the Steinbeck Institute, walked us from spot to spot, The Red Pony in hand, to read specific passages that highlighted or otherwise accentuated the place.

There really is a Red Pony...

From The Red Pony:

"The cowpumpkins were green and small yet. He went on to the sagebrush line where the cold spring ran out of its pipe and fell into a round wooden tub. He leaned over and drank close to the green mossy wood where the water tasted best. Then he turned and looked back on the ranch, on the low, whitewashed house girded with red geraniums, and on the long bunkhouse by the cypress tree where Billy Buck lived alone. Jody could see the great black kettle under the cypress tree. That was where the pigs were scalded. The sun was coming over the ridge now, glaring on the whitewash of the houses and barns, making the wet grass blaze softly. Behind him, in the tall sagebrush, the birds were scampering on the ground, making a great noise among the dry leaves; the squirrels piped shrilly on the side-hills. Jody looked among the farm buildings. He felt an uncertainty in the air, a feeling of change and of loss and of the gain of new and unfamiliar things..."

Barn patina...

Gabilan Mountains...

Farm machines!

After the Red Pony segment of our visit, we returned to Salinas to have lunch at the Steinbeck House, John's childhood home. For those visiting, it is worth a stop to gawk at the authentic artifacts throughout the house. Lunch was excellent! Bring on the rolls, people!

Steinbeck's childhood home...

After lunch, we adjourned to the National Steinbeck Center (a dedicated Steinbeck museum a block from his house) to take in all of the artifacts and interactive exhibit materials. Following this stop, we headed through town to the cemetery where Steinbeck, his family, and his mother's family (the Hamiltons... from East of Eden) are buried. Truly an experience...

Tomorrow, The Grapes of Wrath!