Day 45, Thursday May 17, 2018, Salinas Valley to Gilroy CA

 The Central Valley of California is vast  in the center of the state, but the Salinas Valley runs between the Gabilan and Santa Lucia Mountain ranges nearer the Pacific Coast. It, like the bigger Central Valley, has agriculture as the main industry and raises many crops, including as the main crops;  Strawberries,  (Watsonville-- (remember those labels?)  Lettuce  (many kinds)  Tomatoes (many uses),   Spinach,  Broccoli,  Cauliflower, Wine grape and  Celery. Today we saw them picking cauliflower as it is coming in now.  The highway US 101 runs through the valley and near most of 8-10 towns in the Valley.  Salinas is the largest at 45,000 pop. There is also  tributes to a favorite son, author John Steinbeck, and is the setting for many of his novels, including "East of Eden" and "Of Mice and Men".
 

The highway US 101 north of Morro Bay  still in the mountains.

The San Ardo Oil field at the south end of Salinas Valley.

  "The San Ardo Oil Field is a large oil field in Monterey County, California, in the United States. It is in the upper Salinas Valley, about five miles (8 km) south of the small town of San Ardo, and about twenty miles (32 km) north of Paso Robles. With an estimated ultimate recovery of 532,496,000 barrels (84,660,100 m3) of oil, it is the 8th-largest producing oil field in California and of the top twenty California oil fields in size, it is the most recent to be discovered (1947). As of the end of 2006, the principal operators of the field were Chevron Corp. and Aera Energy LLC."    It is the farthest north of any oil field west of the San Andreas Fault line.

Our journey from Morro Bay was just a three hour ride with two stops for gasoline ($3.79/gal) and a couple of 'stretch' breaks. 

The cauliflower harvesters. Trucks, Porta pottys and workers.

One of thousands of acres of wine grapes

And...more grapes. Many new vineyards up t othe talus slopes.

More than just grapes. But lots of grapes.

The main activity was the working in the fields with many workers and machines of all kinds assisting them.The Cauliflower picking is done by hand and the long truck receives the product and workers on the trucks, (more like long carts) sort them into boxes right away.  
We did see trucks on the road taking the products to the transportation centers. 

We are camping off a road that is only an exit from US 101 with the only other roads leading to the fields and farms. The campground is filled, as there are about three "clubs"here together. It s a well groomed RV Park  and very clean.







 

Crates ready for the cauliflower being picked.

This is a bell along the Camino Real, They are relics from the early auto days. There is one every mile for many miles. They were a promotion to enhance driving on California roads, not an historical gem!

The Sheid Ranch (wineries) created these enormous signs along the way.

This is one of the 13 missions started by the Spanish Missionaries in the late 1600's and early 1700's. This is San Miguel and today is a Rest Stop with the original building redone for that purpose. Fr. Junipero Serra (S.J.) founded this one.

Amazingly on the route there are a few Eucalyptus trees still standing. This  is one group, just south pf the Salinas valley.

So here are some pictorial views  and  few historical entries for you history "buffs".
















Tomorrow we will  cross the Golden Gate bridge and spend some time at Point Reyes , a NWR.