Steinbeck grew up in the Salinas Valley region of California in Monterey County and he describes his revisit to the area after a 20-year absence in detail. Remarking on the many changes, he notes the population growth and the progress the Monterey area had made. He then visited a bar from his youth where he met his old friend Johnny Garcia and learned that a lot of regulars and childhood chums had died. He then seemed to say goodbye to his hometown, on pages 205 to 208, for the last time, making an allusion to "You Can't Go Home Again, a book by Thomas Wolfe." Climbing Fremont Peak, the highest point in what would someday be called "Steinbeck Country," he said goodbye to the place he had made famous in his novels. "I printed once more on my eyes, south, west, and north, and then we hurried away from the permanent and changeless past where my mother is always shooting a wildcat and my father is always burning his name with his love." (208).