California Dreaming

Today I drove through Castroville, California, the self-proclaimed "Artichoke Center of the World." I went through Castroville on the way to Salinas for a quick visit to a John Steinbeck museum. We saw huge fields of fertile soil along the way. For my brother, the fields evoked memories of passages Steinbeck had written about dirt. For me, the fields evoked memories of dirt. Maybe someone can send in a representative passage from Steinbeck. Later in the day I took a nephew on the "The 17 Mile Drive" through Pebble Beach. The vistas are spectacular, and it boggles the mind to think of the valuation of homes along that drive. In the evening I attended a dinner party where I learned the mascot for the University of California Santa Cruz is the Banana Slug. I was able to confirm this by visiting the web site www.goslugs.com, the official web site of UC Santa Cruz athletics. The school's varsity program include men's and women's teams for basketball, soccer, tennis, volleyball, and water polo. Go Slugs!