LTA’S 2024 TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY ROAD TRIP

Beginning this spring, Clay is following John Steinbeck’s 10,000-mile trek around the USA (and making a few fascinating detours of his own). Traveling in a 23-foot Airstream, Clay’s expedition is a central part of LTA’s big initiative to take the pulse of America as it approaches its 250th birthday. You can follow Clay’s Steinbeck-related adventures in the stories and videos linked below and on the LTA Facebook site. Also, subscribe to our newsletter.

Travels with Charley mapMap of Steinbeck’s 1960 journey around the USA on display at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, Calif.

Clay on Route 66 near Neeedles, Calfornia, summer 2024.
Clay sat down with editors at LTA to answer questions and discuss his recent 41 State, 21,000 mile journey around America.
Earlier last summer Clay visited Steinbeck’s childhood home in Salinas, California.
Nolan
Nolan Johnson, Listening to America’s intrepid videographer and podcast editor, shares highlights of his adventures with Clay while traversing the country from Long Island, New York, to the source of the Mississippi River to Monterey, California, on LTA’s 2024 Travels with Charley/Steinbeck Tour.
Road-weary and keen to return home to New York, the final leg of Steinbeck’s cross-country journey took him through the troubled South of 1960.
Ed Ricketts
Clay talks about John Steinbeck’s friendship with marine biologist Ed Ricketts and visits Ricketts’ Pacific Biological Laboratories on Cannery Row in Monterey, California.
Beginning in April 2024 and concluding just before Thanksgiving, Clay traveled over 21,000 miles and visited 41 states, roughly following John Steinbeck’s route as chronicled in Travels with Charley. Clay notes he undertook the cross-country journey partly to gain his own appraisal of America as it approaches its 250th birthday.
A lighter report on heavier cuisine as Clay takes a gastronomic excursion through the American South.

Home Again and Happy Thanksgiving

My John Steinbeck Travels with Charley tour is now over: 210 days, 21,114 miles, 1,407 gallons of gas, 41 states.
Congressman John F. Lacey, August, 1906, in Goodnight, Texas.
While John Steinbeck was not much interested in National Parks, he traveled through a nation whose conservation footprint was indelibly shaped by visionary Iowa Congressman John Lacey.
Medgar Evers' house
Clay visits Medgar Evers’ home, now a national monument. Medgar Evers was killed by a white supremacist here, in front of his house, on June 12, 1963.