Travelling through the terrain of northern California’s wine-growing Amador Country, you catch a glimpse into the origin of the sometimes frightening religiosity that still makes up a large part of American self-belief.
RVs don’t do profundity - they do about eight miles to the gallon. An RV is a Recreational Vehicle. A 24ft long, 8ft wide, air-conditioned holiday home on wheels that corners like an unloved trawler. And an RV is my group’s chosen method of transport
for the 800-mile round trip from San Francisco to near the Oregon border, across the Sacramento plain, framed by the mountains of the Sierra Nevada and Coastal Range.
Our first stop is Amador’s Sutter goldmine. Located close to the site of the first major California gold rush in the mid-19th century, it sits on a lode inaccessible to the technology of that period but one modern equipment makes easy to mine. Sutter now waits, mothballed but ready for an economic crisis that provokes a run to the precious metal - or for one of America’s hip-hop stars to require a piece of jewellery so large as to warrant its operation.
It’s an interesting place, the clean precision of the state-of-the-art tools at the rock face contrasting with our guide’s tales of how things were in the "old days". Despite the beautiful scenery and genteel little towns, the whole area was once rife with men desperate to make their fortune - and prostitutes, saloon owners and con-men equally determined to take it off them. The old adage about it being better to sell shovels during a gold rush proves to be true - our guide tells us they were generally sold at about a 400 per cent mark-up back then.
After a quick visit to the Montevina winery - a tasting session rather wasted on a smoker like myself, who can only tell the difference between a lamb chop and a blancmange if I can see them - we’re on the road again, heading for the Far Horizons RV resort for the night.
The RV community in the US are a tight-knit, if friendly bunch. Mostly retirees, they sell-up their houses and purchase vehicles so large that I witnessed one level itself on the kind of hydraulic arms a moon-lander requires as it parked. When you consider that they frequently tow secondary 4x4s behind them big enough to make an Edinburgh kerbstone into a former Edinburgh kerbstone, you have an idea of the scale.
Next day, we set off for the twin delights of the Hays Antique Truck museum and Heidrick Agricultural History Centre and let’s be honest, the girls in the party aren’t that keen. Knowing myself to be organically composed of at least 25 per cent geek, I find an ally in my pal Jon. Within ten minutes of arriving, my opening gambit: "So, did the post-war Fordson tractor really revolutionise American farming?" sees the two of us being given a detailed tour by one Oscar Bacon, an 80-year-old former UCLA academic of farming stock.
It is in the museum that I take the first step on the road to the kind of victory that is very important to someone as petty as myself.
Just before my holiday, I was watching one of those cable TV adverts for a "Classic Love Songs" album featuring the usual line-up of over-coiffured 1970s and 1980s US rockers. "Who are REO Speedwagon?" asked my viewing companion, a girl young enough to have been born in a year I remember, even if it was just for the consumption of ice-pops and the Queen’s Silver Jubilee.
Unfortunately, she pronounced it "Rio Speedwagon", not, as everyone knows, "R-E-O Speedwagon". As Can’t Fight This Feeling filled the air, I corrected her with some disdain, which brought a comment about my approaching senility and, smarting from that, I resolved at some point to discover the origin of the band’s name.
Well, rounding a corner of the museum, there, paint gleaming like the day it was built, is a big old truck, and on the radiator grille, the name REO Speedwagon is proudly displayed. "Oh, that stands for RE Olds, the guy who founded Oldsmobile," explains Oscar, finding my excitement somewhat odd. "Result," thinks I. However, I’m not aware of what is yet to come on my trivia quest.
In the evening, at a hotel in Redding, we eat dinner with a local big-shot. We eat great seafood at his recommendation and drink much Steelhead beer at the same. Later, we discover that he does PR for the brewers of Steelhead, by which time I know I’m going to wake up feeling like there is a little steel still wedged in my head. In the US, it’s all about business. Even in slow-talking Northern California.
Next day, more rumbling RV miles cause a radio rebellion as the inescapably middle-of-the-road nature of the music being broadcast causes us to swerve off it and begin a desperate hunt in the luggage for a CD. That bard of Californian immigration, Woody Guthrie, proves a winner and it seems fitting as we pass by the mostly Mexican-worked farms listening to his anthem to equality, This Land Is Your Land.
We reach our next stop for surely the highlight of the trip. The California Wild Horse Sanctuary is located near Shingletown, down hills so steep they make the brakes smoke and in countryside so beautiful you run out of words.
With a 14-mile perimeter fence, the sanctuary is home to more than 250 wild mustangs, rescued from Federal lands throughout the western United States.
The horses, mixed with the occasional burro (a small donkey), are left to roam, free of any human intervention and in their natural groups; being composed usually of a single stallion and his mares or sometimes pairs of stallions who often team up for life.
As an inexperienced rider, it is with a degree of fear that I look upon my mount for a reservation tour. His name, Big R, is in no way ironic, standing as he does way taller than the other beasts. It also turns out he’s a mule. I didn’t know they came in that size, born as I was in Wimbledon.
We see some superb Mustangs, all jump in our saddles at the deafening - and hilarious to watch - lip-trumpeting bray of a burro and see a stunning horse of Spanish descent, with a mane like Bob Marley’s hair, right down to his knees.
However, the horseback climb to a hill with a view of the whole place is best, Big R tolerating my monkey-with-a-wristwatch riding abilities and making me look good. The relaxed, one hand on the reins Western-style of riding is a pleasant contrast to the more formal method used in Britain - and you don’t have to wear a silly hat.
It is as I am descending a rocky track that one of those conversations occur which you just know you’d like another crack at. One of the girls from the reservation rides up alongside me - she is the most helpful and bubbly of our assistants. "You from Scotland?" she asks. "I work for The Scotsman, in Edinburgh," I say. "I was married to a Scotsman - he drank himself to death in Texas." And with that, she rides off, not looking any unhappier. The horse in front of me punctuates the conversation by farting.
Towards the end of my week, feeling tired and happy after climbing, cycling, beering and late-night poker sessions amid some of the most unspoilt lands the US has to offer, an evening barbecue is arranged for my party by our American hosts.
Beneath the stark outline of the Castle Crags mountains, beside a river with a full cooler of beer, we make our stand. We don’t stand a chance - there is enough meat to give a T-Rex thoughts of turning vegan and, after a "Cowboy poetry" contest, we are all high on the pure air of Northern California - and Steelhead.
I turn to one of the Americans, a curly-haired, immaculately moustachioed fellow, and begin chatting. It turns out he runs the music venue in the nearest town and he regales me with tales of the people that have played there. "You been in the game long?" I ask. "All my adult life," he says. "I’m from Illinois. Yep, started out managing a band from the university there and stayed with them, quite successful actually. They were called REO Speedwagon."
He shoots, he scores.
California essentialsHow to get there British Airways has two flights daily from London to San Francisco. All the flight prices are based on return economy travel, per person: London Heathrow - San Francisco: £327.90 including taxes; Edinburgh and Glasgow to San Francisco (via Heathrow): £386.80. Visit www.ba.com.
Where to stay The motorhomes were provided by Cruise America, the UK’s leading RV and motorcycle rental agency for trips to the US. Reservations: tel 08705 143607, e-mail: ukres@cruiseamerica.com or visit www.cruiseamerica.com
Lead-in prices for a family of four renting a C-25 motorhome start at $850 per week, including full insurance, vehicle kit (pots, pans, utensils, crockery, cutlery), personal kits for the whole party, 980 prepaid miles and sales tax.
Information Sutter Gold Mine, tel: 001 866 762 2837 or visit www.caverntours.com; Montevina Winery, tel: 001 209 245 6942 or visit www.monevina.com; Hayes Antique Truck Museum, tel: 001 530 666 1044 or visit www.truckmuseum.org; Wild Horse Sanctuary, tel: 001 530 335 2241 or visit www.wildhorsesanctuary.org; California Tourism, tel: 0906 577 0032 or visit www.visitcalifornia.com
