and being somewhere other than the place they were. They were so used to their everyday life that when someone new came to town, they were eager to explore new information and imagine new places. It was as if a new change had entered their life every time someone from out of town came into their state. Traveling further, Steinbeck discovered that technology was advancing so quickly as to give Americans more and more instant gratification, whether it was soup from vending machines or mobile homes. Steinbeck was intrigued by mobile homes. He thought they showed a new way of living for America, reflecting the attitude that if you don't like a given place, you should be able to pick up and leave. He reflects on rootedness, finds much to admire both ways, going and staying, and finds a secret language and camaraderie among truckers. At the end of the section, Steinbeck arrives in Chicago to meet up with his wife. After dropping off Charley at a groomer's, he gets to his hotel early and finds his room not ready yet. Being tired and scruffy, he makes a deal with the hotel to borrow a room which hasn't been cleaned up after its last occupant, and once in the room investigates what the previous tenant, whom he refers to as "Harry," has left behind, constructing a half-grounded, half-fictional idea of him as a traveling businessman who hires a woman to spend the evening with, though Steinbeck believes neither enjoyed their time that much. Part Three Steinbeck traveled across Wisconsin and Minnesota toward North Dakota. He traveled along U.S. Highway 10 through St. Paul on an "Evacuation Route" that would be used in the case of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. He called it "a road designed by fear" (p. 129) and it sparked one of Steinbeck's many realizations about American society: the fact that the country was driven by fear. Once through St. Paul, he went to Sauk Centre, the birthplace of writer Sinclair Lewis, but was disheartened to talk to locals at a restaurant who had no understanding of who Lewis was. Stopping at a diner for directions, Steinbeck realized that Americans are often oblivious to their immediate surroundings and their own culture. He also complained that Americans have put "cleanliness first at the expense of taste" (141). He lamented that "It looks as though the natural