PORT TOWNSEND — Poulsbo author John Olson will tell next month of his travels retracing those of John Steinbeck.
He will be the featured speaker at the Jefferson County Historical Society First Friday Lecture on Jan. 6.
He will speak at 7 p.m. in Port Townsend’s historic City Council chamber at 540 Water St., Port Townsend.
Admission will be by donation. Proceeds will support historical society programs.
Olson will discuss his book Down John’s Road: Recreating John Steinbeck’s 1960 American Road Trip.
Fifty years after Steinbeck traveled America with his dog, Charley, Olson followed the same route in reverse.
He traveled 12,751 miles in 80 days.
Along the way, he met an array of characters, including a homeless couple in a Walmart parking lot, a sports trivia savant in Connecticut and a literary cab driver in New Orleans.
Olson returned home with the feeling that America is the greatest melting pot the world has ever known and an understanding of Steinbeck’s seminal statement from his book Travels with Charley, “We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.”
