weedpatch camp

Here you can walk into the pages of a novel by Nobel Prize winning author John Steinbeck. In Chapter 22 of The Grapes of Wrath, the Joads arrive at Weedpatch Camp - and here it is. Weedpatch was built as a migratory labour camp during the depression. The original community hall, library and post office still stand, just as they would have been in the Joads' fictional days. The buildings stand on the corner of what is still a (newer) labour camp in which the current-day workers who tend the surrounding fruit and vege fields live. The surrounding fields - one can see for miles over the flatness - and the backdrop of low mountains to the east are absolutely gorgeous, especially in late afternoon sunlight. The community hall contains a few dusty odds and ends, however there is currently little else here aside from the buildings and an invitation to time travel in your imagination back to the 1930s. While I was looking around a local woman stopped her car and told me that the older folk in the area have been hoping to do more restoration and start a museum, but have been unable to due to lack of funds and interest from the younger generation. She also said that thieves have broken in to the buildings and made off with various objects of historical interest. Given how many tourist dollars Monterey and Salinas rake in from Steinbeck's legacy, it seems a shame and a crime against literature that this gem from the pages of a classic goes forgotten and decaying, unappreciated and unvisited.