So I stopped for lunch in San Juan Capistrano, home of the Spanish mission, which I didn’t realize until now is the oldest building in California — and the etymological source of my blog.
Let’s see if I can get this straight:
Travels with Harley was inspired in part by my reading of Travels with Charley, the book the author John Steinbeck wrote 50 years ago about traveling the country in a truck with his dog “in search of America” — or at least the country as he found it in the fall of 1960, which had changed profoundly from the America he once knew.
But Steinbeck wasn’t all that original himself.
He borrowed the name of his truck, Rocinante, from the name the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes gave the horse of his fictional Don Quixote. And he took his own book title from Travels with a Donkey, written the previous century by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, about his travels around the French countryside with a burro.
Nor was Robert Louis Stevenson that original.
He was inspired by a Franciscan friar named Father Junipero Serra, who the previous century founded the Spanish missions of Alta California along El Camino Real — “The Royal Road,” aka “The King’s Highway” — a dirt path that extended roughly 600 miles up the spectacular California coastline, from San Diego to San Francisco, wherein he spaced each of those 21 missions roughly 30 miles apart, or one day’s travel by horse and donkey.
(Stevenson, himself, visited those missions, and he also based his popular Treasure Island on the real-life shipwreck that Father Serra experienced in the Caribbean Sea.)
So we come, full circle, to San Juan Capistrano, about 50 miles north of San Diego, returning like the swallows, just as I am about to come back full-circle to the place where I was born.
Travels with Harley 
The only thing more fitting would have been for you to do this leg of your journey on Serra, our first donkey. Glad you’ve got the faster and more comfortable Harley this time around!
Yes, sweetie, I’m afraid it’s a very tangled tale we’ve wove — and I’m not even going to mention Serra’s handsome first foal, Sancho Panza, and how he led me to you (yes, and lucky that he did).
What a journey you’ve had! So glad to be able to vicariously take part in it. Stay safe on the last leg(s) of your journey, and look forward to seeing you upon your return!
I read this entry of your journey with special interest as I’m fascinated with the California missions and that particular part of Spanish history in the Americas. I’ve been visiting San Diego every summer nearly since 1996, and always make a point to visit the mission site and “presidente” house in old town San Diego which dates to 1820. A beautiful place. But, I have not been to San Juan Capistrano! I will definitely try to get up there my next trip. A nicely written piece George, thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it Charlie. You could probably enlighten me a lot about the missions (and feel free to when I return). I didn’t wade into the subject with this brief post, but you probably know how poorly the Indians were treated at the hands of the Franciscans. Father Serra considered them all errant children and approved of the occasional beating… But boy did he blaze a spectacular highway. Highway 1 up the central coast is absolutely as good as it gets. Cheers!
Some gems here, George. Writers are always thieving from each other. You gave us a good daisy chain of thieves here. Thanks.
Right you are, Peter. I always liked Woody Guthrie’s observation (as related by Pete Seeger). Woody said: “Why, he just stole from me, but I steal from everybody…”
You are closing in on Nauheim hometown territory… spent many a bad teenage hour in the Sonoma Mission (Solano). California has an amazing, if not cruel, history! Stay safe!
Oh how I wish I wasn’t running out of time and could head up Santa Rosa/Mendocino way — and explore a little more of that Nauheim Country! Sadly I can’t this time. Today I’ve been working my way up highway 1, but when I reach Monterey I’m going to have to dash north up the central valley. Need to make it to Portland by Sunday. Stayin’ safe tho. Thanks, Tori!