History, unique art and a proximity to some really interesting places make Salinas a very cool town.

Salinas is home to a collection of vintage rail car. We visited the restored steam locomotive, tender, wooden caboose and newly acquired 1923 refrigerator car. The Monterey and Salinas Valley Railroad was the area's first steam powered railroad to service Monterey (1874). It was incredible to meander in the history.

Train travel of olden day is very romantic to me. I love trains.

More history was found at the First Mayor’s House which consists of the restored home of Isaac Julian Harvey, the garden, and Learning Center. The home has been completely restored to the 1870s and houses family documents, photographs, clothes and furniture, giving a rare glimpse of early Salinas community life.
Mr. Harvey was a successful merchant when he moved west to capitalize on the prosperity of the Gold Rush in 1853. In 1866, he brought his family to "Salinas City," where there were only twelve buildings and the nearest railroad was in San Jose. Isaac and his son Absalom "Benton" established Harvey and Company, a successful general store. Soon the family became very active participants in early Salinas life. 

Isaac was becoming a most influential citizen, instrumental in relocating the county seat from Monterey to Salinas, in bringing the railroad through town, and in securing the incorporation of Salinas. Fittingly, he was then appointed the first Mayor of Salinas and friend of Leland Stanford.
We were told to visit "Hat in Three Stages of Landing". When the sculpture outside the Salinas rodeo arena was unveiled in 1982, bands played, Boy Scouts led a salute to the flag and the mayor presented sculptor Claes Oldenburg with a commemorative salad bowl.

"Hat" was more than a monumental work by the world-renowned Oldenburg, it was a point of civic pride, a way to let the world know that Salinas was a place where art and culture thrived along with endless acres of lettuce and broccoli. Interestingly, the holes in the hat represent a colander. Also interesting to us is the fact that we have seen his work before, a large sewing needle in Milan. This was a fun place to visit.
I described Salinas as beautiful. Those who haven't spent much time here scoffed at that adjective. How can something like this field be described any other way but beautiful? The richness of the soil and the promise of the bounty it will usher forth. I found vistas to admire all around us.
The Farm, closed for the season, will be a place we return to. Besides having luscious fruit and delectable pies, they proudly display giant sculptures by local artist John Cerney. These sculptures are a tribute to the hard-working people employed in the farming community of the Salinas Valley. "Without them, our country would not be blessed with such abundance."
We drove along the River Road, a wonderful path along the Salinas River. When we came to this expansive field of cactus, we had to stop. Most think of this Valley as the salad bowl of America, but if the D'Arrigo Bros. Co. has its way, Americans might come to love the region as the main source of cactus pears and nopalitos.
The fruit of the Opuntia Ficus-Indica might be better known as a prickly pear or tunas in Spanish, but Claudia Villalobos, a sales specialist with the farm, prefers cactus pears. The name sounds less dangerous and confusing. We have never seen so many cacti and the flowers were spectacular. Hmm, might have to get me some nopalitos pronto!
Our next intriguing pause was in Spreckels, a true company town. In the 1920s and 1930s the Spreckels Company was the largest sugar beet factory in the world. Steinbeck's father worked as a plant manager at Spreckels for a number of years and was instrumental in getting summer jobs for his son as a handyman and later as a bench chemist. Working at Spreckels, Steinbeck heard stories he included in Tortilla Flat (1935). Parts of the film version of East of Eden and the television presentation of his short story "The Harness" (1938) were filmed at Spreckels.

In 1888, Claus Spreckels established the Western Beet Sugar Company in Watsonville, which was at that time the largest beet sugar factory in the U.S. By 1890, Spreckels main growing operations had shifted to the Salinas Valley, so he built the 42-mile narrow gauge Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad to ship his sugar beets from the fields near Salinas to Watsonville.

In 1899, Spreckels opened an even larger factory closer to the main sugar beet fields. He named the new factory Spreckels Sugar Company. A company town grew up around the plant, and still exists as Spreckels, California. What an incredible trip through the past.
As the sun began to set, we visited La Mision de Maria Santisima Nuestra Senora de la Soledad, founded in 1791. The mission was built to link Mission San Antonio and Mission Carmel so that the distance between the missions would be shortened.
Mission Soledad, the 13th in the series, was built in an isolated area ’discovered’ by Portola. The site had soft, rolling hills and valleys that held the promise of good land. The area turned out to have severe winter weather and to be cold and damp during the colder months and with little rain during the hot months.
It may have been a difficult place to live but the views were stunning. What an idyllic end to our day.