DAY 26 - Steinbeck Country

Last night ended with instruction in the arts of Shithead and Asshole: both games that I suspect I’ve played before but with different names.  Both drinking games, I can only be thankful that this was a dry run.  Sam is well equipped with better cooking utensils than the last tour, which helped the spaghetti, and airbeds, which supplemented by my own made for an excellent night’s sleep.

We left on the dot of 8.30am for Monterey, which as a Steinbeck fan since I first read “The Grapes of Wrath”  at the age of 18, I’ve wanted to visit ever since.  I’ve re-read it on the Kindle as we’ve crossed the USA and I now realise how important a book it was for me.  I think the economic circumstances of the early 1930s are happening again now and it is as if nothing has been learned from the experience.  Is it not the greatest failing of history that we seem to learn nothing from it?

The route to Monterey crossed predominantly flat land that was cultivated on a larger scale than previously.  The main crops seemed to be strawberries, artichokes, green vegetables and lettuces with immigrant labour (I presume) busy gathering the harvest in.  In places new strawberry fields were being cultivated and elsewhere they were already under plastic so one assumes that strawberries are harvested virtually all year round.

As might be expected, Monterey has turned into a typical tourist attraction, with a particular emphasis on food, but the vernacular architecture of the sardine canneries as been preserved pretty well.  Tourists really must consume vast quantities of food if all the enterprises there are financially viable.  The town was made famous by the ‘Silver Harvest’ (and Steinbeck writing about it).  As we drove away I downloaded ‘Cannery Row’ onto my Kindle and am already well into it!

The industry was started by a Japanese immigrant, Otosaburo Node in 1902, when he moved his abalone operation to Monterey and set up the first cannery on the row.  The business was bought out and sold a couple of times before the basic product; sardines fried in peanut oil and canned began to gain popularity during the First World War.  The original working boats were too small for both crew and catch so a lighter that could hold between 25 and 60 tons was towed behind the catching vessel.  As there was no landing dock, fish were transferred by hand into a metal bucket holding 600 pounds and each bucket was winched into the cannery weighing room.  This was undoubtedly a hard job at the end of a day that that involved catching the fish in the first place.  In 1927, one Knot Houden, frustrated by the slow technology in place introduced purse seine fishing techniques and introduce a more rapid method of unloading the catch.  Floating wooden hoppers were anchored to the sea bed and connected to the canneries by an underwater pipe. Now the fishermen simply had to shovel their catch into the hoppers from which it was simply sucked up into the canneries.  Here the fish were processed: cans were stored on the inland side of the ‘Row’ and sent across the street on covered crossovers to the canneries.  Once canned, the sardines made the return journey before being transferred back via the crossovers that are still preserved today.  The heyday of the industry came with the outbreak of the Second World War but the new techniques were so effective that the bay was fished out rapidly and production fell by 80% between 1941 and 1943.  So, an important industry rose and died within 50 years and today no large scale fishing takes place at all and the canneries have all been demolished or converted to a tourist function with Steinbeck featuring strongly as a theme.

                                       Affluent tourism and dereliction all in the same shot!

From Monterey, we headed south along what should have been a highly scenic experience.  The road is perched on a steep cliff with sheer drops above and below to the ocean.  Deep canyons cut in from the left.  At one point the road had been washed out and recently repaired.  Despite the promise of blue sky above the quality of the views was largely academic as we were mostly shrouded in fog.  Occasionally the walls of mist fell back and we were able to manage a few photos. 

 Our lunch stop was in a lay-by as the restaurant opposite wouldn’t let us set up on the same side of the road!  The road verges were pretty with a variety of plants; fennel, California poppies, nasturtiums and something looking like cat mint were all things I could recognise.  I caused a little consternation when I picked a few nasturtium leaves and added them to my salad.  There is also a lot of reedy looking grass that might well be a form of mini pampas grass.  Continuing the journey we had a photo stop to look at a large group of elephant seals; ugly looking creatures who seemed perfectly content to wallow in the sand, stirring a flipper now and then to throw fresh sand over themselves. 

A Wallmart stop at San Luis Obispo before more travel to El Capitan State Park where the campsite was.  There is a clear distinction between State and National Parks and the two we’ve seen so far at distinctly down at heel, but at least the pitches are spacious.  Sam did the cooking, BBQ chicken and sweetcorn and the meal was enlivened by the arrival of a skunk.  Sam really freaked out and scared it off whilst the rest of us were reaching for cameras.  He claims that if it had sprayed the equipment, our trip would have been effectively ruined.  Nice to know my snoring isn’t the worst thing that can happen!