East of Eden ride

Words made me fall in love with the Salinas Valley long before I visited this beautiful place. When I read John Steinbeck's East of Eden in high school, I was taken with his descriptions of this unique place. His representation is at once lyrical and naturalistic. Even then, I was drawn to depictions of mountains, such as:

I remember that the Galiban Mountains to the east of the valley were light gay mountains full of sun and loveliness and a kind of invitation, so that you wanted to climb into their foothills almost as you want to climb into the lap of a beloved mother. They were beckoning mountains with a brown grass love. The Saint Lucias stood up against the sky to the west and kept the valley from the open sea, and they were dark and brooding--unfriendly and dangerous. I always found myself in a dread of west and a love of east. Where I ever got such an idea I cannot say, unless it could be that the morning came over the peaks of the Galibans and the night drifted back from the ridges of the Saint Lucias. It may be that the birth and death of the day had some part in my feelings about the two ranges of mountains.

On Sunday, I designed and completed a bike ride that would pay homage to this special place. I began in Prunedale, a suburb just north of Salinas, and took in both mountain ranges, the valley floor, and the Salinas River that makes this place so fertile.

The first part of the ride followed the west side of the Salinas Valley, along Old Stage Rd. I rode the foothills of the Galiban Mountains in the grey morning. To my right, fertile fields were vivid green, with workers tending the crops even on a Sunday morning. To my left was parched ranch land, with dumbstruck cattle watching me sail by.

I crossed the valley at Gonzalez. The Salinas River once defined the middle of this valley, but now it's the 101 that roars along the level ground. I stopped for food and crossed the river on Gonzalez River Rd. The bridge was unassuming and quiet--I celebrated the moment with a few bites of an oversized Rice Krispie treat and pedaled on.

Turning onto River Rd, I began taking in the foothills of the Santa Lucia mountains, that range that Steinbeck mythologizes as "dark and brooding." In my case, the sun had started to peek through morning clouds and these mountains were anything but foreboding. The road was pleasantly undulating and lined by leafy vineyards, as I proceeded towards the Soledad Mission.

Just three weeks ago, my wife and I were married at the Santa Barbara Mission, a church that boasts itself the "Queen of the Missions." It is a grand landmark and a tourist attraction. The Mission Soledad was quite different. As I pulled into the parking lot, the parish priest greeted me and, thinking I was using it as a pit stop, directed me to the bathrooms. I told him that I would actually like to see the church, so he smiled and told me that 10am Mass had just ended. Behind the church, parishioners were gathered in a rose garden, chatting and drinking coffee. One was kind enough to take the picture below.

Representing Regis HS in front of the Soledad Mission

Stepping inside the church, I was struck by how understated and small it is. The walls were a plain off-white, lined by the stations of the cross. The lumber roof was stained with primary colors, red and blue. I didn't contemplate Adam and Eve, or Cain's banishment east of Eden, but I did say a quick prayer of thankfulness and apology (I was riding rather than attending Mass, after all) before pedaling home.

The Salinas Valley has certainly changed since the time of Samuel Hamilton and Adam Trask, Steinbeck's main characters. They rode horses, and eventually early cars, but not bicycles. Yet the mountains remain, bounding the valley on each side, perhaps suggesting the duality of day and night, of good and evil, of uphill struggle and downhill cruise. And the river, though mostly dry these days and drowned out by the 101, also remains, perhaps as a sign of a spiritual force flowing between and among in all. As my wheels hummed, I tried to feel that spirit in snatches and whispers.  That presence, that peace, is paradise.

The mission bell, a la "Hotel California"