CALIFORNIA
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digit speeds for the first few kilometres.
Urban rush hour aside, the US is
built for these beasts, and once we
get across the Golden Gate and out of
the metropolis my confidence swells.
The gears are automatic, the roads
broad and the locals forgiving.
We’d chosen the state for our
Airstream adventure partly because
this is where Wally Byam founded the
company in 1931, partly because nowhere
else in America says, ‘Go west, young
man... Head out on the highway... This
land is your land... Wherever you lay
your hat, that’s your home...’ and all
the rest of it quite like California.
And then there’s the variety. California
comes with a range of terrain that
makes it a road-trip dream: temperate
rainforests, alpine mountains and vast
tracts of desert, as well as the more
clement Pacific coast stretching south
from Los Angeles. We haven’t made too
much of a plan — the whole point of an
RV is that you’re not tied to a schedule or
itinerary, so you can pull over and stay any
place that calls to you — but we do decide
at the outset to reject the iconic Route
101 in favour of a loop heading north to
the Redwoods and the wilderness that
we could experience in our Airstream in
a way we never could staying in a hotel.
It’s pretty civilised to start with. Vivid
red Budweiser and Coca-Cola trucks
coast past, the commercial lifeblood of
America flowing along the country’s
vast asphalt arteries. We lumber by
hilly vineyards and quaint country
towns — Philo, Boonville, Cloverdale
— full of wholesome homemade-pie
shops and hand- painted signs. Streets
bristle with wooden porches, hanging
flowers and palpable civic pride, and
we pass scores of eccentric emporia:
the Here’s Hair Salon, Independence
Guns and Ammo, the Love In It Co-op
(a medical herb dispensary). We snack
on punnets of two-dollar honesty-
box cherries from local farms.
Keen to plug in for our first night
while it’s still light, we’ve reserved a
spot in an almost empty campground in
Manchester, Mendocino County. Early
May is the perfect time to travel here:
the parks are quiet and we’re pretty
much alone. At reception we’re issued
with a camp map and allotted a site
number. These places are seamlessly
managed, and navigation is easy — we
circle Sunshine Drive and turn off
Happy Kamping Way — but still with
a proper dose of nature: the narrow
gravel track peters out at our parking
spot between towering tinselly firs.
While I build a fire and crack open
some Californian red, Sergio hooks
us up to the mains. The campground
is well catered for, with electricity,
water, pump-out, shower block and a
bear box to protect food supplies. The
cleverly conceived Airstream interior
we’d so carefully packed, however, has
rearranged itself into a Jackson Pollock
of ketchup and socks. It takes time to
get used to living in such a small space,
but as the trip progresses we learn
how best to seal, wedge and stuff our
possessions to minimise the carnage.
Every day we devise new ways to make
do with our resources: I discover that
black pants make a passable eye mask for
sleeping through those early sunrises.‘
THE SMITH
RIVER RASPS
PAST, AND
SMALL STREAMS
CHUCKLE AWAY
UNDER FALLEN
TRUNKS’
The next morning, however, we hit
serious trouble, with our 4WD’s engine
emitting a sulky grunt followed by
silence. Our neighbours convene around
the stubbornly unresponsive motor
and various theories are advanced. I’m
worried we forgot to flip a connection and
drained the batteries, but our advisory
panel kindly demurs. ‘You know what’s
wrong?’ says Glen, a wry glint flickering.
‘It’s a Ford.’ (All-round mirth.) Twenty
minutes and a squirt of something
homemade later, we are on our way —
with a glovebox full of numbers to call
should we have any more problems.
It’s clear from the affectionate, slightly
covetous glances we receive on leaving,
that the Airstream has successfully
initiated us into the RV fraternity.
We push on up the coast through Fort
Bragg, Garberville and Eureka, as all
the while the Pacific hurls itself angrily
ashore in dark grey arcs on our left. We’re
keen to get some distance covered, and
still apprehensive of any manoeuvre
more complicated than straight driving,
so we barely stop on the first day, lapsing
into a cruise-control trance. Gradually
we relax, and life resolves itself into a set
of simple priorities: where to sleep and
find firewood, fill up and empty tanks.
One of California’s main draws for us is
that it has more national parks than any
other state — not to mention hundreds
more state parks, many of which you can
stay in — and our next night is spent
at the Redwood State Park RV Resort.
We quickly ditch the trailer and head
to nearby Stout Grove, which doesn’t
have the biggest trees in the region, but
is staggeringly, serenely beautiful.
We wander by belt-high sword ferns,
bright-yellow banana slugs and out-
sized sorrel. The wind builds a gentle
snare-drum-roll high up in the canopy,
animating the leaves then swishing
away. The Smith river rasps past, and Credit: Jenni Doggett/The Sunday Times Travel Magazine/News licensing