I have been asked to mention books I am reading about my travels. Webb Chiles mentioned John Steinbeck’s travel book which set me thinking a while back. He didn’t talk of it by way of recommendation but I thought about it a bit and found a copy on my Libby app.
Libby gives you access to your library account online so you can check out audio books or electronic books and read them on your device. A lot of the value of the app depends on how extensive your home library is, and I’m lucky the Monroe County library has a wide range of titles.
The funny thing about Libby is that you can only borrow books as they become available just as though you were picking up a physical book at your branch. However this app is just another of the incredible tools that make nomad life so enjoyable and remarkable in the 21st century.
I do carry a couple of paper books for the pleasure of reading but an electronic Kindle is essential to me. We use Express VPN when outside the US to make it look like we are at home and thus have access to books and movies through our home accounts. We don’t make money off the internet so we haven’t yet bothered with the Starlink connection, especially as it has very limited service outside North America and Europe. WiFi and cell service works just fine aboard GANNET2.
All that by way of explanation but as far as Travels with Charley goes I am quite surprised how relevant the story is. Steinbeck grew up in Salinas California, a region I am very familiar with as I lived almost 20 years in Santa Cruz on Monterey Bay, but he moved to Long Island away from his home town critics, in an act of mutual rejection. By 1960 he was ready to explore his homeland and he took to the road in a pick up truck with a camper shell. Oh and a dog called Charley. Does this remind you of anyone?
The astonishing thing for me was how similar our rigs are! He ordered a complete camper from the dealer and as you read the description in the book you discover not too much has changed fundamentally between now and then. Give some latitude for improved technology and of course electronics and the way he traveled that Fall of 1960 isn’t so different from how we travel aboard GANNET2 in 2022, sixty years later. For details about the vehicle and it’s restoration follow this link to a superb description:
I have read some of his novels -and watched the movie versions of his stories. I read his other well known travel book set in the Sea of Cortez and I think among Nobel Laureates (1962) he is among the most readable. Many of the prize winners I try and find them impenetrable. Steinbeck is very approachable and this story is funny and incisive and meditative by turns. I have felt exactly as he has felt during our recent tour of the United States aboard GANNET2.
Modern academics dissect the book and argue over the truthiness of the stories contained in his travel stories. They debate the veracity of his descriptions of people met along the way and how much of the conversations he made up and they forgive him because he was a writer and a novelist and he is allowed much latitude. I don’t care about all that intellectual debate. I can tell you his story of driving across America rings true to me, details be damned.
I see so many of my thoughts and opinions about the road, the general state of the country, the joy of travel reflected in Steinbeck’s writings I find it hard to believe he made the trip in 1960. I empathize with his occasional pursuit of hotel rooms for hot baths ( we use modern truck stops! ) and I rejoice that I have Google maps to stop me getting lost all the time like he does.
I am astonished to find a brother on the road in John Steinbeck. Webb Chiles pointed me there so I shouldn’t be surprised. You might enjoy his story too.
