USA- thoughts and impressions...

Hey Folks!

It´s time for an English written post again, so I will try to give you some information about our trip and maybe there are some nice stories to share after travelling more than two month in the US.

We finally reached Mexico and are having a great time in Zacatecas (thanks again to Ulises and Poncho who helped us working out our route…). So I take the chance to look back to the experiences and adventures we had in the last few weeks. Since this was my first trip to the USA a lot people asked me if I liked the US and what I would think about their country. In the beginning of our trip I was just able to give a short comment, something like “oh, I like it, it’s nice”, but after travelling a few weeks in different places I´m able to give a more detailed comment. There are so many good memories and special things I remember when I think about our trip through the country. First of all, I didn’t expect to stay so long in the US, and when we flew into Las Vegas and I did my first steps on the US territory (which happened on the Strip close to our hotel Excalibur) I actually had my expectations confirmed. I was quite shocked when I faced all these terribly dressed and drunken tourist from all over the world gambling on the cheap slot machines and besides I felt pretty jet-lagged and tired. Fortunately we left Las Vegas very soon and I got to know to the first American citizen in the first “real” American city, which was Paul in Los Angeles. And from that point I actually got to know the most amazing and spectacular aspect about the USA…the people! It is actually a very beautiful country, very BIG and amazing, and what impressed and overwhelmed me the most was the friendliness and hospitality of the people we met! Furthermore I was really surprised about their interest in our trip, our lives and our opinions about cultural or political topics. We actually met a lot of different people between San Francisco, CAL and San Antonio, TX regarding age, ethnic and cultural background, political views and they’ve been all very interested and open minded towards us even if we had strong controversial views on several topics. Maybe it’s given by the fact that we’re travelling such a long time and distance, however everywhere we’ve been we suddenly got in touch with other people which was amazing. We even got a lot of presents from the friends or guys we met on our trip which saved our camping live in our van: a cooler, a soccer ball, a table with two chairs, a fridge, an axe, an auto-recharger, books and guides and a lot more, just to mention the biggest stuff…

People showed us around and gave us information about their country which was pretty cool. And since we are German we’ve been invited to a ton of beers, for instance in happy hours at Twin Buttes or in Matt´s hot tub which was pretty cool too.

Especially Spencer and Diane, our friends from San Francisco saved our trip and actually made it real. They supported us a lot und helped us with all the preparations which had to be done. We stayed three weeks in this lovely little place called Montara, on Highway 1 south of San Francisco, and after these three weeks we had bought our shortbus, we had been able to pay it cash (thanks to Diane, NOT to our credit institutes…), we had built a furniture into the shortbus, we had a lot of paperwork done, we had enjoyed a mass of Diane´s brownies, we had had amazing nights together in Montara and the surroundings, we had had a lot of fun and enjoyed the warm and friendly hospitality of them and we had made friends with a Boston Terrier (I actually fell in love with him…). I cannot stop mention that we had a great time in Montara and thank these guys a lot! Hopefully Spence and Diane are gonna visit us in Germany one day and maybe even bring Owen;-) 

Besides, the Americans have the best dogs in the world! Our first experiences with dogs in the US have been quite different when Lars and me decided hiking the Runyon Canyon in West Hollywood. We started our trip close to Paul´s place highly motivated to hike up to the top of the mountain to enjoy a probably clear and gorgeous view over Los Angeles. Down in the park we meet a lot of adorable sportsmen and women doing their exercises and the higher we got to the top of the hill we realized that this place is supposed to be a fun park for muscular boxing guys and their funny fighting dogs…on the narrow trail to the top of the hill we met too many fighting dogs that we decided not to enjoy any view and better rush back to the safe and comfortable place we have been coming from. Ahh, and we decided not to adopt one of these tiny little dogs…

So before going to Montara we actually asked Spencer if they had a dog, just to be prepared…and they do have Owen, a Boston Terrier. But instead of being afraid of this guy it took me more or less two days to fall in love with him. He is the funniest and sweetest dog in the world, also probably the most heavily snoring dog in the world. In fact he is a quite good buddy who loves to play, to move, to be entertained and he also knows to relax and to play by himself. Spencer said about Owen that this dog was $600 of pure joy and he is definitely right! Well, I will stop my declaration of love right now…

Besides the amazing experiences with people and dogs we had, I found out a lot of bizarre and surprising facts about the USA. One theme was the attitude towards President Barack Obama. We bought our Shortbus in Santa Cruz, California with an Obama sticker on the back window of the vehicle. It is a modern art picture of Barack´s face with the word “HOPE” underneath his face. We didn’t really care about the sticker and somehow liked it. American drivers in the streets might care about it, though. It happened to us in Southern California when we’ve been crossing a junction. A guy was yelling out of his car towards us, something like: “So how is all that hope and change stuff working out for you guys? Just another trillion of deficits spending, that’s exactly what our economy needs right now…” Well, this guy was really furious and angry, there was no sign that he was just kidding. Five seconds later in same junction we saw a pick up crossing with a sticker on its back which said “guns are human rights”. So much about sticker on the back…we decided to remove ours before going to the states of Arizona and Texas which are supposed to be more conservative than California. That’s what the pre-owner of the car even recommended when we told him that we’re planning to go south. So for me this was a very weird experience. I never thought that this kind of sticker may cause any trouble on the streets, otherwise I felt strongly attempted to yell at the other guy with his gun sticker what he is thinking how this gun stuff is working out for him. Just another eleven thousand murders a year, that’s what this society needs right now…I cannot believe that in the same intersection on a Californian street you can have trouble because you have a sticker of a Democratic American President on your back while another car defending the possession of guns crosses the street without even being noted. For me as a German this situation was unbelievable. I just imagine myself in Germany with a sticker of our chancellor Merkel on the car (which I would never have by the way…), nobody would bother, and maybe people would make fun about it. And I would better not imagine myself with this gun sticker on the car, this is actually impossible! I think you know what the German majority thinks about the possession of guns and so do I. Well, some weeks later we spent a fabulous week at the Twin Buttes RV Park in Arizona. The people treated us like their own children and we made real good friends over there. I really liked the people and the place and we actually had a lot of conversation about political stuff. For example they do have a completely different attitude towards Obama or the possession of guns than we have. Nevertheless I liked them a lot and we changed our opinions about these themes. So I found out that the political discussion in the USA is quite vivid and maybe because of the existence of just two big parties the political opinion is very one-way, either conservative or democratic. Well, I don’t understand too much about politics and I don’t want to offend anybody, these experiences gave me just a strange feeling, though. I for myself from a German perspective really hope that Obama is going to be elected again next year. And I wish that sticker of democratic politicians don’t cause any more trouble in American streets, maybe people discuss more the right of possession of guns (which you can actually buy at Walmart, another thing that really shocked me, you’ll find them next to the camping stuff, close to the children’s toys)…

Another interesting topic on our trip was the boarder conflict between Mexico and the USA.

Same thing, I don’t understand a lot about this conflict and I’m not American citizen, however I developed my point of view when I learned about the boarder conflicts while travelling a lot in the boarder region. The States do have an enormous system to safe and control the boarder, you gonna meet the Boarder Patrol everywhere. They have checkpoints in the bigger roads coming from the boarder and mainly they run an incredible high number of agents in the region who control and safe the boarder. They are driving around, observing, watching for footprints etc. Between the countries there was actually built a fence about several hundred miles, which means there are many individual iron fences and so-called virtual fences that safe the boarder with radars, watchtowers and big balloons. We’ve been lucky that Roger took us on a great tour around Bisbee, Arizona. He showed us the fence between Mexico and the USA and so we got a feeling about what’s going on between these two countries. Wow, and there was a lot going on…we’ve been stopped several times by the boarder patrol and fortunately everybody knows Roger and the Twin Buttes so we didn’t get in any trouble with them. For sure, there a several reasons why they run such a big system of control and I do know about the drug dealing and the huge number of illegal immigration, however it gives me a bad feeling that even today governments raise fences and walls to protect themselves from foreign countries. I somehow learned from our own German history that building a wall is not a good idea…there must be other ways to face this problem and I somehow expect from a modern, western government that they are able to learn from the past and find more constructive ways to solve this problem. This is my German perspective again, which is maybe a bit touched by the tragic, sad history we had on our own with the former existence of two German states.

Later on in Texas (Big Bend National Park) we touched the boarder conflict just the opposite way. In this National Park there is the Rio Grande which marks the boarder between Mexico and the USA. In this period of the year there is hardly any water running the river so it will be any easy walk to the other country and back. And there is no Boarder Patrol at all. There is one spot where there are hot springs close to the Rio Grande and the river carries plenty of water so that it’s a pleasure to take a quick bath in the hot springs and in the Rio Grande. Which we did (well, the friends we met in Phoenix won’t be surprised to hear that I took a bath only in the hot springs…) and so did two Mexican boys from the other side of the river. In the end there was also a whole group of teenagers, maybe a class trip, joining us and all these American and Mexican kids have been splashing, playing and swimming together in the Rio Grande. I loved to watch them playing together!

The National Parks in the US are the most beautiful places I have ever visited. It’s not just because of the amazing and fascinating nature and landscapes but also because of the best service they provide for their visitors. There are lovely campgrounds with good facilities everywhere and these places however very well integrate into the natural environment in which they are located. They are simple but as a visitor you feel as if you actually respect the natural environment. The park managers and rangers do a really good job in teaching the visitors and showing them the natural highlights. We never felt like getting lost and we learnt much about animals, nature and stuff I was never interested in before. Our newest skill is to locate some star constellation in the night sky. Orion, Big Digger, Small Digger, The Seven Sisters, Saturn, Leo, Betelgeuse…we know them all;-)

We prefer travelling with the blue one...

Another memory I’ll ever have about the USA is the high dimension of almost everything. This county is just big! Everything is just blasting all dimensions. Travelling from A to B usually took us longer than I expected because the distances are just long. Just try to leave Los Angeles on the Highway and it will take you at least one hour. Hiking and running was great but I usually expected the trails to be shorter and the hills to be lower than they’ve actually been so I had good exercises. Which was good to have because food and drinks are bigger and richer I was used to. On our way from San Antonio to the boarder we stopped by at a Sonic Restaurant just to enjoy a last American fast food. I had a kids burger, please look at the size on the picture below…And you don’t even have to move to get your food. There are Drive Throughs everywhere, which I have never seen before, at restaurants, coffee shops, ATMs, pharmacies which was pretty good for us because we never had to wait too long for our food because most of the other customers took the Drive Through. At the Sonic Restaurants you even don’t have to move the car because the staff serves the food on skates to the parking lots. If I ever needed to earn some money in the USA I’d love to do this job.

Sonic!

Kid´s size!

We watched a funny occasion in San Antonio close to Ulises and Poncho´s house, the friends we stayed with. We’ve been driving around on the bikes looking for some geocaches when there was a long line of cars in the street and a policeman controlling the traffic. First I didn’t realize what’s going on but as we approached I suddenly understood: school was over and the parents came in hundreds to pick up their midschool-children by car. Wow, I should have told my parents to pick me up from school; they would never have done it.  

Well, I could go on for hours writing about the extraordinary and amazing experiences I had in the US (which is not just because it takes me sooo long to express all this stuff in English) but I will finish now. To cut a long story short I can tell that I was especially amazed by the people we met. I was deeply touched by the friendliness and hospitality we faced. Everybody was so interested in our trip and also in our lives in Europe that I sometimes even forgot about learning about their lives and their stories. We’ve been welcomed everywhere we came and people tried to make our trip a bit easier. Even bureaucratic things are easy and customer friendly as for instance it was no problem to cancel an insurance we had for our car when we’ve been leaving the country.

So now we are travelling around Mexico. Fortunately we met two Mexican guys from Hospitality Club in San Antonio just before heading south. There again we experienced great hospitality and got a lot of useful advises and tips concerning our trip through Mexico. And we learned that Mexican people are also very friendly and nice (which did not really surprise us, to be honest) so we started highly motivated and interested our trip to Mexico. We do take all the warnings and advises people gave us before serious (except the one a posh lady gave us in L.A. which was to bring a lot of guns to Mexico to protect ourselves) and we appreciate all the fears and sorrows friends may have while we are travelling. Sure we are going to take care but don’t worry, I’m sure we’re having a great time in Mexico too.  

So, that’s it! Thanks for your patience;-)

Hope to see you soon and don’t forget to visit us in Germany! Otherwise we’ll come back to the US soon!

Maiken

Viva México!!!