Catch a train in Salinas, a town made famous by John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden.
© Joyce McGreevy
Time-Traveling on Trails & Rails
Unsteadily hiking the path, I meet a National Park Service guide. She tells me that “Spanish explorers traveled this historic California trail, named for Juan Bautista De Anza.” This was the land of the Chumash, Pima, and Quechan peoples. Wait—I’m in a moving train. But as I’ll discover, I’m “right on track” for aha moments.
“Believe it or not, you’re in a national park right now,” says guide Kathy Chalfant, as the Coast Starlight rolls southward. We’re following California’s coast and time-traveling to the 1700s. Oh, I see: Sometimes a train commute becomes a journey into history.
