By camper through the USA
The Tioga on the road
The German woman likes to travel to foreign countries. Then she does what she does best: she makes herself and others really comfortable. Anyway, that can be read in surveys. And because my friend Esther and I are two average German women, we thought: Let's look for the ideal combination of freedom and homeliness, we just drive to the west coast of the US, rent a camper, chug from San Francisco to the north, Oregons Along the coast to Seattle, sometimes head to a piccolo, look through the panoramic windows into the countryside and the sea and talk a little about life. Maybe we could have felt it when we landed in San Francisco, that idea that the stranger is not always well-disposed to us.
Barely arrived, I stepped into a huge street, sprained my foot, Esther was in front of a movie in a demonstration for the rights of gay cowboys (it ran "Brokeback Mountain") and bought a pink cowboy hat voluntarily. Bouncing on one leg, I managed, supported by this chewing gum cowgirl, even to Chinatown. On Stockton Street, we rummaged among Chinese for life-prolonging roots, because living in California, that also means to summon the eternal youth, or at least to extend the distance to the coffin.
The next day we set out to pick up the motorhome with the serial name Tioga. Such a camper is big, it has dimensions reminiscent of a truck, it is just under eight feet long, two and a half feet wide and has a more rustic interior to be called. It has sleeping quarters for five people, the prospectus claims - the car seems to have been constructed before the obesity of America.
route planning
It has a shower / toilet cabinat the sight of which we decided that it would only have a deco character, and a refrigerator, the contents of which, together with coolant, spilled over Esther's head a thousand miles later during a sharp braking. Although an employee of "El Monte RV", the lender, had explained what all the buttons and levers mean to us, where are the fresh water tank, gas, waste tank and petrol receipts, but we admit: I was closed very busy with finding the coffee maker and Esther with stowing our too big suitcases. In addition, we still believed in all explanatory manuals at this time. However, this should turn out to be a big mistake the first night.
But in San Francisco it was only lunch, it was hot, and we bought everything we thought we needed in the next supermarket. These included a 40-roll toilet paper packet and marshmallows for barbecues for Esther, I did not want to give up a 1000-gram pack of nachos and five different types of dip. As compensation, we bought kiwis with the label "fat-free product". What we really needed, we felt 120 kilometers later on our first campsite in Calistoga in the wine-growing region of California.
Finally cowgirl
It was darkWhen we arrived, the campsite did not have a full-hook-up space, so there was no connection for electricity, no connection for fresh water and no pipe for disposal in the sewers. Our interior light did not shine. We could not fire the generator, which had the charm of two tractors with bronchial problems, because of the neighbors needing the WIFE. The phonebook thick handbook did not say clearly, and when we tried the stove, the fire alarm went off. We briefly considered whether this was the true meaning of the term "merciless coziness". The next morning the yoghurt and butter were frozen. We had forgotten that Tioga should always sleep in the horizontal, and put no blocks under his two front wheels, so that the coolant in the refrigerator is properly leveled, as the thick manual writes. We blamed each other and finally left without breakfast.
Souvenir shop along the way
But the air was soft and smelled like sun, all around Calistoga brand-new wineries were pushing, pretending they were at least two hundred years old and in France. Life here breathed harmony and sweetness. A "bed and breakfast" like a colonial sugar baker's dream was also for sale, and we wondered if we should just stay here, where people have something as fresh as a good Prosecco, the climate is always pleasant and the wineries are meaningful "A box of wine makes more miracles than a church full of saints."
After Calistoga, we moved north along increasingly empty highways through the barren landscape of central California, and finally arrived in Mount Shasta. It must be imagined as the establishment of a worldwide spiritual association, at the foot of a 4316 meter high, breathtakingly beautiful mountain, which is doused with snow even in the summer and revolving around the clouds shaped like UFOs. Tioga must have felt very alone at this time. In spite of our cosiness-genes, he was the only one in the campsite who did not get an artificial turf in front of his staircase that did not have a satellite dish and was not decorated with flowerpots, light garlands, tablecloths, illuminated gnomes, and oversized inflatable beer bottles.
Buggy driving is a family sport here
For the first time we saw in Mount Shasta also a camp-mobile, against which our Tioga looked like the poor relatives from the former Eastern Bloc countries. In this mobile everything was marble and gold and the carpets were thick and fluffy, the satellite dish bigger than my bed, the curtains muzzled, there should even be a dance floor in it, and the owner rested outside on a tapestry chair. "200 tons, 75 feet long, $ 1.8 million," murmured Steve, the space guard. Later, Esther and I discussed whether Tioga is more akin to a German average man, who also owns only 2.5 underpants, holds back hair for body jewelry and after two months no longer looks when you get out of the shower. Luxury, we agreed, we are not used to anyway, we get a Tioga.
Mount Shasta is considered the center of a huge energy spiral, contacts with aliens are considered safe among the inhabitants. There are esoteric bookstores, shops where you can get everything from witches' herbs to pendulums to addresses of "cat communicators". Sinnsucher, world religions, advocates of Asian and African tribal rites, all gurus of the faith marketing have settled here. After a shopping spree on the village street, a boulevard of healings and visions, one thing quickly became clear to us: At some point in your life, you have to decide what you really want - an existence in a field of energy, or rather in a mobile home with imitation oak cabinets. We continued across the border to Oregon.
Life Artist James Shepard
The road to the coast was curvy and sometimes very narrow. There were small gatherings of houses, and on the roadside just before Bandon, an elderly man was sitting in front of a woodshed amidst many paintings. Her hair is white and disheveled, her shoulders are pulled together. James Shepard, 67, led us to the gallery, "we live behind it," he said, "my son and I." A confusing tangle of furniture, pictures, books, magazines, bottles. Paint in tubes, on plates, towels, canvas, bedsheets, the floor. He spent his life in the wake of rock bands, James said. The women countless, the drugs too, and painted again and again pictures as in intoxication, 40 years, a thousand stand, camp here. Rarely does he sell anything, and so his existence is also something of the interface between California and Oregon: He counts himself among the madmen, the outcasts, the outsiders, who are said in the East of the United States that they have all rolled to the west when God once briefly raised the continent a bit.
Endless beaches ...
The picture-book forests, which had so far dipped everything in the green light, dissolved. Suddenly the trees disappeared, and the sea became a vague idea, the people more stocky, the beaches farther and the air rougher, we were on Oregon's coast. Everything here was wet cool, rock and setting sun and cold water on bare feet. There was driftwood in the bays, and every night, when we were sitting on another campsite, the fog crept up and absorbed the landscape. And suddenly, everything that bothered us at our camp-mobile seemed to us small and unimportant. At some point on this coast, the names of the beaches and small towns blurred into a 683-kilometer dream between Brookings in the south and Astoria in the north. A dream of summer and freedom, a ride in the sunset in Nehalem Bay and the longing for an idyllic small town life with wooden freighters and fishing boats, galleries, chic restaurants and fish stalls. The coast road was our guide, and every beach here belonged to us, for beaches in Oregon, so the law wants it, belong to the general public. Only that the general public is almost never seen, even in midsummer there are beaches where you think you were the only survivor of the climate catastrophe.
... but there are also deserts in Oregon
The mountain ranges on one side and the gusps of the ocean on the other side made us appear small on the road to the north, two Playmobil girls in their Playmobil caravan. From Tillamook Head, this 400-meter-high cliff above the wild Pacific, we looked at seal colonies.Alaskan seabirds, looking like a group of little penguins, nestled on the outcrops, and far below us the Pacific jumped up against the rocks. Suddenly, the "Coast Range" ridge retreated four kilometers intoland, and we stood in the Oregon Dunes Recreation Area, with its sand dunes that are up to 150 meters high. In between pine trees grew, and in the evening we squatted on top of a dune, watched for a long time in the setting sun, and watched the drivers of the buggies racing fast and with great leaps through the sand. The Honeyman State Park, we learned, is a campsite where mommy and grandma put dusters over their mouths, with their buggies brought home from home with great cheers stuck in potholes and in the evening the sand between their teeth with a vial Rinse off the crystal-blonde Oregon beer.
Our days had meanwhile a certain routine, apart from the fact that one of us had driven Tioga in the meantime against a bridge pier and thereby lost our entry stairs. Waking up to six because the sun was shining in the face and the neighbors' dogs barking, that was our little life. Downhill at about nine, but we were usually already the last, because the experienced mobilists know: You have to early in the afternoon the next park drive, so as not to get the place right in front of the toilets and showers. That is then also at night as similar as camping next to the Rosenmontagszug in Cologne. The freedom we had expected also gave way to a certain amount of confinement. Usually the neighbor stood exactly two meters next to us, sometimes in the morning I first looked directly into the still half-dead eyes of a whiskey-lover or into the clean-shaven face of a miniature poodle. But always, really always we had our own picnic table, a fire pit and a tree. And we learned to love: the evening barbecue, starry nights, our headlamps on the way to the toilet, the first step in the morning in the cool of a new day. And the security of waking up in the stifling air of a common Camp Mobile Night.
Marshmallow grilling
And we discovered that on our journey we had gained a completely new view of each other: on our hair (how long does it take the hair dryer with her fluff?), Our breakfast habits (every morning tomato with mozzarella, she must always the Italian lover out?), hips (Well, if after two weeks of marshmallows still has a waist size of 76?), our yearning for nature (sometimes it does a dry bouquet). In Oregon, we also realized what was completely unnecessary in our luggage: the swimsuit. It was so cool here even in the stinging sun that nobody wanted to go into the water. Maybe that's why there are hardly any fancy hotels with beach access, but still motels with sea views and fan heaters and large families, wrapped in fleece jackets and blankets on the beach in the evening barbecue their marshmallows. If you are looking for the sophisticated life, then go to Cannon Beach: Here is the Haystack Rock, a 70-meter basalt monolith, in the surf: Cannon Beach has a chewing candy factory. And art shops with the same watercolors in all the coastal cities of the world: beach, rock, tree, boat, sunset. Cannon Beach is also the announcement of the end of equilibrium of rest and limitation, of sea and mountains, of deep blue and deep green. After that, the often narrow band of the road becomes wider, it comes only Astoria and then the state of Washington, which remained for lack of time only something fleeting.
When we moved to Seattle, The snow-capped peaks of Mount Rainier and Mount Olympus shone in the distance. Seattle are lumberjack shirts, rock'n'roll, outdoor life and high-tech millionaires who hide their money through casualness. We were immediately hugged in the throng of the "Gay-pride Parade", someone put colorful pearl necklaces around our necks, in the evening we lay in the cool grass of the Volunteer Park and watched old films with the last fragments of the festival. Hashish swathes blew through the air, and there we lay completely exhausted as cut out against a colorful glittering background of decorated people. And suddenly we thought about the night in Depoe Bay, Oregon. Our campsite was directly over the sea, the wind tugged at Tioga, who staggered, shook - and yet we were lingering, this was the place we had dreamed of: we looked into the setting sun and talked about life at home , about children, career and the insatiable need for unrepentant, casual sloppiness. We woke up with the view of the roaring sea and the wildly scurrying clouds. And, Esther said, we felt "scrubbed clean, inside and out."
Travel info
GET THERE For example, with British Airways from Frankfurt to San Francisco from 348 euros or from Hamburg with KLM from 629 euros.
PHONE The area code to the US is the 001.
Getting Around For example: Camp mobile for five people and nine days, acceptance in San Francisco, tax in Seattle, including 1000 free miles from 1099 euros (Canusa Touristik, Nebendahlstraße 16, 22041 Hamburg, Tel.040/227 25 30, www.canusa.de).
find accommodation Petite Auberge. Old French charm, delicious breakfast and very friendly staff in a centrally located B & B. DZ / F from 130 Euro (863 Bus Street, San Francisco, CA 94108, Tel. 415 / 928-60 00, Fax 673 72 14, www.petiteaubergesf.com). Mildred's B & B. Victorian villa right on the park and within walking distance to the trendy district between East Broadway and 15th Avenue. DZ / F from 66 Euro (1202 15th Avenue East, Seattle, Washington 98112, Phone 206 / 325-60 72, Fax 860 59 07, www.mildredsbnb.com).
CAMPING Mount Shasta City KOA. Overlooking the top of California's Mount Shasta, spacious, clean and close to town. 15 to 23 euros per night (900 North Mt Shasta Blvd., Mount Shasta City, CA 96067, Tel./Fax 530/926 40 29, www.koa.com) Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial State Park. Just behind the dunes of the Sahara Oregon? in the midst of tall trees with beautiful parking spaces. From 9.50 euros per night (84505 Highway 101, Florence, OR 97439, Tel. 541/997 36 41). Nehalem Bay State Park. Camping behind the dunes, directly on the sea with a huge beach. Ideal for children. From 12 Euro per night (9500 Sandpiper Lane, Nehalem, OR 97131, Tel. 503/368 51 54). Sea & Sand RV Park. You can stand on a cliff overlooking the water, a wonderful windy place. 21 euros per night (4985 N Hwy 101, Depoe Bay, OR 97341, Tel. 541/764 23 13, www.oregonstateparks.org, provides information on all state parks and camping opportunities in Oregon). Fort Worden State Park. Here was shot "An Officer and Gentleman" with Richard Gere. Spacious park, good sports facilities. 15 Euros per night (200 Battery Way, Port Townsend, Washington 98368, Tel. 360/344 44 00, www.parks.wa.gov/).
House of Nanking. The longest queues in all Chinatown, tight seats like a miniature refectory, but great food that attracts an ever-growing fan base (919 Kearny St., San Francisco, Tel. 415/421 14 29). Limón. The Mission winner in the Mission District, with outstanding Peruvian cuisine, menu from 23 Euro (524 Valencia St., San Francisco, CA 94110, Tel. 415/252 09 18, Fax 252 12 62, www.limon-sf.com). Chuckanut Manor. Here you get the best grilled oysters in Weinsud, served on a really nice terrace by the lake. Menu from 6 Euros (3056 Chuckanut Dr., Bow, Washington, Tel. 360/766 61 91, www.chuckanutmanor.com).
BE ACTIVE Dune driving. In Oregon with the four-wheeled buggy through the gigantic dune landscape near Florence, awesome! From 30 euros per hour (Sand Dunes Frontier, 83960 U.S. 101, Florence, Oregon, Tel. 541/997 35 44, www.sanddunesfrontier.com). Crabs are fishing. An absolute must in Oregon! The fishing license is right there at the dock, a brief instruction, then you are alone on the sea and seeks his dinner. From 46 Euros (Jetty Fishery, 27550 Highwax 101 N, Rockaway Beach, Oregon, Tel. 503/368 57 46, www.jettyfishery.com).
EXTRA TIPS Bus driving in San Francisco. The number 30 bus is the best north-south link in the city center, connecting the trendy shopping districts of Chestnut Street / Marina District, Chinatown / Fillmore Street and Union Street / Cow Hollow. Dreaming in Oregon. Three Capes Scenic Loop, a small country road near Tillamook, Oregon, parallel to the 101, which passes through wetlands, small sleepy villages and forests with breathtaking views of the coastline. Flying in Lincoln. Kite enthusiasts should definitely stop in Lincoln / Oregon: There are countless shops with flying machines in all variations. Strolling around Port Townsend. Last stop before the ferry to Seattle, a well-preserved Victorian idyll with magnificent mansions over the harbor.Amazement in Seattle.Drive between Bellingham and Seattle via the Chuckanut Drive: a small coastal road high above the cliffs with dream views of small islands and the deep blue sea.
READ Moon Outdoors. A campervan holiday is not possible without the Moon Camping guides. They offer the best places and many tips for lonely beaches, pretty villages and fun: "Moon Outdoors, Oregon Camping"; "Moon Handbooks, Coastal Oregon"; "Moon Handbooks Washington" (Avalon Travel Publishing, from 16,50 Euro).DK Eyewitness Travel Guide Northwest and California. Detailed travel guide with photos, city maps, unusual tour suggestions, hotel and restaurant tips (Dorling Kindersley Publishing, from 24.50 Euro).
