round TRIP
California
Nancy was standing in the living room of the bungalow in Alta Vista Drive, about 8 minutes' drive from the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park. The bungalow was furnished – if you can call it that – in typical Joshua Tree style: The living room had a large, cognac-coloured leather sofa and a mid-century armchair complete with small side tables. A colourful vintage rug created a transition to the dining area and the modern, fully equipped kitchen with rustic base cabinets, framed by white metro tiles. Behind it, a fireplace and a seating area in a kind of conservatory. Everything looked very bright and inviting and gave the house a stylish-modern, homely charm. There were large and small cacti in earth-coloured pots everywhere, creating a wonderful contrast to the white walls. But the eye-catcher was a wooden bench on which a record player stood, including a few albums from the eighties, such as "L.A. Woman" by The Doors, "4" by Foreigner or the great album "Atlantic Crossing" by Rod Stewart with the song "Sailing". Right at the front was a disc whose cover showed the slogan "Nice as Fuck" in black letters. Was that the album name or that of the band...?
Somehow, the whole of California is one colourful playlist, peppered with the most diverse genres and influenced by past decades: loud, kitschy, sometimes melancholic, a little over the top, somewhat challenging, not always entirely accessible and sometimes quite superficial. It's a playlist about the different people who live here and about the multifaceted landscapes that make California so incredibly diverse. For us, however, it is above all a playlist about the gateway to our round trip through the national parks of the USA.
Arrival in San Francisco and departure in L.A. Two big cities that couldn't be more opposite than all that awaited us in between and around them. For it was there that California revealed its true wealth to us. Because of a gold discovery in the 10th century and because of all its natural treasures also called "The Golden State", California is the state in the USA with the highest density of national parks. Nine of 62 parks are located here. Among them are unique ones like Yosemite National Park, Sequoia National Park and Joshua Tree National Park. Here we see burly bears and dainty lizards, mighty tree giants and fragile desert shrubs, mirror-smooth mountain lakes and ever-dry steppes.
California promises wealth and success, power and beauty. And yet it is above all the land itself that has been richly endowed: There are alpine mountains, foggy coasts, hot deserts and fertile valleys. Cotton, sugar beet, barley, wheat, rice, fruit, wine and vegetables are grown there. California has water where you wouldn't expect to find any, probably the most picturesque sunsets, ancient, gigantic trees and the start of a highway that takes you right across the country.
California, named after a novel about an island of gold called California, inhabited by beautiful Amazons, still has enormous appeal today, to emigrants and tourists, stars and starlets. California is home to the 49ers, Disney, Getty and Hank Moody. Of Hollywood and the Golden Gate Bridge. Here, actors' dreams can come true, or actors can become governors. Or actor first governor and then even president of the USA. Sung about on countless playlists, in countless songs, California is "such a lovely place, such a lovely place...".
USA, May and June 2022. | All words and photos by The Sturgheons.
