Itinerary

Day 1 — Monday, March 14th

Welcome

Steinbeck, in Travels with Charley:

A trip, a safari an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike.

Welcome to Steinbeck Country! The afternoon will be yours to get settled and to begin getting to know your fellow guests. After dinner we’ll gather for a Welcome Reception, a short orientation, and then a rare “appearance” by the normally reclusive Steinbeck. We’ll end the evening with a walk along the southern tip of the Monterey Peninsula in Pacific Grove, where Steinbeck lived and worked during the years of his greatest works, and where you’ll experience the first in a week of spectacular sunsets.

Day 2 — Tuesday, March 15th

Salinas

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Today we’ll make our way into Steinbeck’s hometown of Salinas, at the northern tip of the Salinas Valley. We’ll start with a visit to the author’s grave in the Garden of Memories cemetery, then move to the National Steinbeck Center in Old Town Salinas. From the Steinbeck Center it’s a short, two-block walk to the Steinbeck House, where we will enjoy lunch and have the chance to view Steinbeck family photos, letters, and other memorabilia.

Day 3 — Wednesday, March 16th

Point Lobos

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

We’ll head out early to discover some of the natural wonders of Steinbeck Country. Point Lobos was so meaningful to Steinbeck that his family chose it as the site of his memorial service back in 1968. We’ll spend the morning hiking through this state reserve that has been called “the greatest meeting of land and water in the world.”

Day 4 — Thursday, March 17th

Cannery Row

Meals: Breakfast, Dinner

The opening words to Cannery Row:

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants, and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses.

Today we explore Cannery Row, as well as Cannery Row. First, Cannery Row the book, Steinbeck’s popular 1945 novel that put the spirit of his great friend Ed Ricketts at its center. We’ll explore the book, the local history, and the famous Steinbeck/Ricketts philosophy that is at the novel’s core. Then we’ll step out into the real Cannery Row, beginning with a visit to the award-winning Monterey Bay Aquarium, which sits on the site of the old Hovden Cannery and features its own Steinbeck/Ricketts exhibit, as well as a visit to Ricketts’ lab.

Day 5 — Friday, March 18th

Fremont’s Peak

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Steinbeck in Travels with Charley:

I drove up to Fremont’s Peak, the highest point for many miles around. I climbed the last spiky rocks to the top . . . This solitary stone peak overlooks the whole of my childhood and youth, the great Salinas Valley stretching south for nearly a hundred miles, the town of Salinas where I was born now spreading like crab grass towards the foothills. Mount Toro, on the brother range to the west, was a rounded benign mountain, and to the north, Monterey Bay shown like a blue platter.

We’ll grab a packed lunch and head up to Fremont’s Peak. Like Steinbeck we’ll “climb the last spiky rocks to the top.” Here you’ll have the greatest of all views of Steinbeck Country, and fittingly, we will finish our discussions of Steinbeck’s work at the very spot where the author himself looked down on Steinbeck Country for the last time.

Day 6 — Saturday, March 19th

Discussions and Relaxation

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Steinbeck to his editor, Pat Covici, discussing The Grapes of Wrath:

You know that I have never been touchy about changes, but I have too many thousands of hours on this book, every incident has been too carefully chosen and its weight judged and fitted. The balance is there. One other thing- I am not writing a satisfying story. I’ve done my damndest to rip a reader’s nerves to rags. I don’t want him satisfied.

Today we will stay at our well-appointed coastal accommodations for a day of literary discussion, as well as plenty of time to enjoy the California coast. This evening we will have our celebratory dinner, recollecting all the memories made and honoring the great author Steinbeck himself before departing tomorrow.

Day 7 — Sunday, March 20th

Departure

Meals: Breakfast

Steinbeck on finishing:

I truly do not care about a book once it is finished. Any money or fame that results has no connection in my feeling with the book. The book dies a real death for me when I write the last word. I have a little sorrow and then go on to a new book which is alive. The rows of my books on the shelf are to me like very well embalmed corpses.

Breakfast and transport to the Monterey airport. Safe travels!