Onwards from Portland

The Northwest was determined to make an impression, it seemed. Our plans had turned out well, but Oregon and Washington had some surprises up their sleeve. Our drive out of Portland took us east for a couple of hours to take in the mighty Columbia River gorge. We sped along to Hood River before turning back to stop off at Multnomah falls. The chill of winter still hung in the air, and autumnal hues framed the surging waterfall with its fairytale bridge. We hiked up to its top, where the vertiginous drop roared. Who knew this was America's second highest waterfall?

Back in the car and we skipped through Portland revisiting the New Deal cafe for a spicy burrito lunch followed by cardiac arrest banana and cream pancakes, smothered in maple syrup. By the end of the day we'd have sped all the way to Astoria on the recommendation of Owen and Terra, our Portland hosts. And we were there for one reason: The Goonies! We drove to Canyon Bay and felt the childish flush of excitement at seeing the rocks that had pointed the way to One-Eyed Willies' treasure. Canyon Bay itself is stunning, and we took a stroll on the beach and around the lookout points to breathe it in.

The next day, we hit the Goondocks and I did my obligatory truffle-shuffle obeisance. I swear as we got in the car to move on, I was a little choked, and there was a tear in my eye. After all , I'll never be 8yrs old watching The Goonies for the first time ever again.

But the Northwest coast STILL wasn't finished with us. The Lewis and Clark exhibition over the incredible Astoria bridge, is situated at the end point of their journey. In the late 18th Century, Oregon was completely unmapped, terra incognita to Europeans. In 1804, Lewis and Clark undertook an 18month overland journey to map the frontier. Thomas Jefferson asked them to go in peace to the native inhabitants and link the country coast-to-coast. They succeeded, and the incredible bounty of the land was soon opened up to migrating Americans. Along with the California history museum, and the Oregon history museum, we'd really learnt a lot about Western America and its people. Firstly, the natural resources here were mind-blowing: men literally caught salmon as they leapt up stream, there were so many. The timber resources were (and still are) vast - the oldest and biggest trees anywhere in the world. Beavers were so plentiful and their pelts so valuable, they became known as 'soft gold'. It is a testament to the courage and ambition of the American frontiersmen that this wealth was harnessed so quickly in what began as total wilderness. The mentality of men like Lewis and Clark, not only to explore, but document in daily diaries and collect thousands of specimens, in the face of severe hardship still propagates today in some of the best American qualities - their entrepreneurship, their optimism. But the rapacity and self-interest is also evident: Settlers poured into the West rapidly after Lewis and Clark's success. The biodiversity and wealth of the Northwest is still great, but also greatly diminished. And the treatment of Native Americans was terrible - and generally continues to be, despite the immense strides Canada has made a few miles away with their integration of the First Nations. There was no crystal ball in 1804 though, and the staggering journey that took 24months round-trip was amazing to uncover.

Art in our hostel, City Hotel

As the rain clouds gathered, we closed in on our final American destination - Seattle. Starbucks, Microsoft, Nordstrom clothing, Boeing: The city is home to some of the most successful businesses of the moment. A diverse and variegated economy, with massive success and the continued creativity in the arts, particularly music and food: it's no wonder that its poster boy is the smug intellectual Frasier crane. But Frasier is balanced by his dad, Arty, and likewise we found a super-friendly and approachable city amongst the skyscrapers and riches.

Pikes Place Market was our first stop, and we took a tour with Seattle Bites. Our excellent guide Kristin displayed such infectious friendliness and enthusiasm that we couldn't help but be swept along. The fact that it was backed up by serious knowledge about the history of the market, delivered to us as we grazed around the finest eateries on offer, made for a superb morning out. We stopped at an artisan creperie run by an immigrant Dominican family; a Goan had set up an Indian stall with the finest tikka masala; Ulli's Bierstube offered the best in German sausage (actually better than any I'd had in Germany...), and locals had perfected their soups at Pike Place Chowder: so good that they were banned from national competitions. The market is not only a great melting pot of cultures and cuisine, it is a real lesson in incubating start up businesses: it is here that Starbucks opened up its first hole in the wall coffee joint. And indeed any Starbucks in Seattle has a much more independent, organic feel than the carbon-copies shipped out for export. Like Guinness, it doesn't travel well but at its source you can see why it's such an institution.

First ever Starbucks...

The other thing about Pikes Place is that it operates as a real example of social history and the lessons to be learnt. When the US sent its Japanese American citizens into concentration camps in 1942, the market almost collapsed - these Americans had run 75% of the businesses. Their forced migration has left a legacy, and today there are no sushi bars or any Sino-American involvement in the market. A mural was added to the wall of the market to at least recognise that for the first 50years, the market's existence relied on these tradesmen. The market was also threatened with closure in the 1970s as supermarkets peddled their one-stop-shop approach that would end up dominating the Western world. In Seattle, the proposals to bulldoze the market for a car park started a grassroots movement that not only saved the market, but started Seattle on an long road to ethical living: it is recognised as the most environmentally friendly city in the US. And finally, its sordid past where 'seamstresses' plied their trade with gentlemen's trousers gave way to female led businesses; the first female owned business in the US was  registered at the Market and it continues as a one of the most liberal cities on women's issues. All in all, it was a real education - and a quick wine tasting at the end was the cherry on top.

The creamery is owned by Nancy Nipples. No Joke...

With such a foodie culture, we would have been remiss not to go crazy and eat out all the time. So we did. Top Pot Donuts were soft and moreish with mouth-filling jammy centres. Sutra was an epic vegan five course dining affair, a list of ingredients as long as your arm creating subtle and delicate flavours to an Indian inspired backdrop (complete with gong to start the meal and mini- Ghanesha on our table). We had our first ever real Chicago style pizza, so deep pan you get why they call it a pie, and with tomatoes so ripe you could taste the sun. And for drinks, we couldn't fault the Bathtub Gin joint: tipped off to a black door in a back alley, we entered the speakeasy and three hours later they had to pull us out at closing time as we clung to the bar demanding just one more drink...

It wasn't all gastronomic. We made time for EMP, where the history of Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana are laid out in glorious audio-visual detail. We saw the first guitar to ever blast out Smells Like Teen Spirit. We spent hours listening to rare recordings, talking heads from the time, and ogling memorabilia. To top it off, a little sci-fi exhibit downstairs  had geeky props on display: Mr. Pointy - Buffy's favoured stake, Captain Kirk's command seat, Neo's cloak-type costume. Yet again, just sober this time, we were dragged out at closing time.

Our final day was spent in Fremont, hipster central. Here the jeans are tight and the glasses big, and facial hair is the in-thing. Owning jeans that fit me, having a beard, and being a coffee nerd at all of the boutique artisan roasters in the area, I felt at home. Mhairi's Peruvian Llama jumper and Indian styled jewellery meant that together, we felt like we could rent a flat and run away to Fremont. The street art, the liberal culture, it all started to spoil us. It's not all of America, but it's certainly the nicer part that gets under-reported in the face of North Dakota style politics.

All in all, the US part of our trip had been really eye-opening. Little things make London living seem backwards - free wifi everywhere, free water every time you sit down, modern cheap public transport - the pure benefits of consumer society are easy to see. But the dispossessed also seem much more out in force - and those needing wheelchairs or crutches are often in poor relics from the 70s. Turning on the news channels, even in the blue states, is terrifying: and the continued drain on resources - lights on everywhere all the time, massive food waste from huge portions - is mystifying in the current global environment. With a better understanding of the incalculable riches of the American West, it is obvious that amazing things would happen. But with such a territory, could a post-Enlightenment state not have done better? Given equal rights for blacks and native Americans earlier? Or today have a more sound policy on immigration and income disparities? Used its resources more conscientiously from the start? Or today at least realise that SUVs are gas-guzzling waste buckets of cars? It's unfair to judge America though - it's too big, too complex. And generally the West Coast is on the right side, championing issues where it can. Most importantly though, it is a culture of hope - and given the cynicism of old Europe, it's perhaps the greatest lesson they have to teach us.

Lenin stalks the streets of hipster Fremont

The Redwood Coast: from California to Portland

The Northern Californian and Oregon coastline is ridiculous. Thoroughly ridiculous - vast and almost bleak in a bleached palette of bone ivory, ochres, wooded greens and duck egg. From our wine adventures around Sonoma and the Russian River, we packed up Sally the tent (her days now sadly numbered) in Armstrong Woods, said goodbye to the rowdy inmates of the Bullfrog Pond and, after a coffee stop in our adopted local in Guernville, turned towards Route 1 ready to round the bend and strike out up the Coastal Highway. We would stop in Mendocino - notorious as idyllic B&B territory for urban Bay area weekenders in search of quaint and scenic - but first overdosed on cliff-hanger hairpin bends and jaw-dropping ocean views as we wound up the stretch from the Russian River through Jenner and Fort Ross. 

We'd suddenly screech into a lay-by when the views got too unbearable not to take a closer look (or when my craning my head around every new bend got too hazardous). Look at this!, we said, rock-strewn utopian clifflines, just lying around the place! If this was in the UK it would be rammed wall to wall with tourists and picknickers the whole time and here it is on a momumental scale with barely the odd dog-walker taking it in. The vastness of the US hit us again: the sheer scale of everything from bagel and coffee selection to natural beauty, to the terrifyingly mammoth off-road vehicles we confronted at every turn in the road.

The frontier here is a bare, visceral reality you can't look away from. Time and again on our month winding up towards the Pacific Northwest we got a palpable sensation of the profound awe that must have silenced the Lewis and Clark men before the snaking trails of Oregon wagons that followed them in the decades after. Nature is inescapable out here even in the 21st century - enormous, desolate and commanding. The couple of hours up to Mendocino passed this way, between the perilous drops and the woodlands to our right. We ate lunch in Patterson's Pub, a quiet, friendly bar with huge plates of food served within 15 minutes of ordering and a smart, elderly bartender in a shirt and tie. We stocked up on food supplies for the night, unsure what provisions we might find that night at Humboldt Redwoods State Park where only one campsite was yet open at this chilly stage of early Spring. We'd taken to cartingaround our own wood supplies in the car boot, together with our portable kitchen: a couple of sturdy carrier bags with fruit, bread, cream cheese, porridge oats, vegetables and condiments ready for whatever BBQ treats we could source at each stop.

The road continued in spectacular style up past Fort Bragg before we veered inland from the coast towards the 101 Redwood Highway. We'd managed to grab extra gas for the stove but not to stop at a laundry, in the way of hand-to-mouth backpack travel: just another night wearing everything I own as the temperature drops and off to sleep reeking of bonfire, I resigned myself. The Redwood Highway running alongside Humboldt is immense. Yet it is also curious, being in large part the work of a sedantry American culture which seeks to bring absolutely everything, from fast food to the great outdoors, to your car window. Why drive to a forest or beach, after all, in order to park and carry yourself off on your wee legs, when you could just motor along it all without having to expend a single calorie?

This aside - and passing by a drive-through where you can literally drive your car through a single redwood - we wound contentedly along the shaded highway, marveling at the towering beasts overhead. The sun was fading and as we found the Burlington campsite, the temperature had already begun dropping. After the ritual faffing around with payment we got our nightly routine underway. Tent up, fire started up and mushroom and onion pasta on the go. A couple of San Franciscan weekenders wandered over apologetically with an unlit log. Could they light it on our fire, they giggled hopelessly. Chest puffing up, now secure in his fire-lighting prowess, Toby took the girls in hand and rescued their woeful fire bin from its indignity. Our good Samaritan moves did not go unrewarded, with a couple of beers and an extra bag of fire-logs coming our way once both fires were roaring.

And despite being further north, Humboldt Redwoods turned out much warmer than previous US campsites - perhaps the inland location or just the complex microclimates of the Pacific coastal strips. So a couple of much better nights' sleep passed in our shaded forest camp, with the day spent walking among the prehistoric giants - photographing and nattering, driving out to different start points and meandering along the silent bracken pathways. It's hard to communicate how imposing the redwoods really are, or why it is you naturally find yourself half-whispering in their company. How alive they feel and how utterly they dwarf you - together with your whole civilisation, in fact. If you've never before felt the tree-hugger urge - in so far as this is possible with trunks that so exceed your paltry grasp - these will be the beings who inspire it. 

But with no time to lose - and pretty tired and matted from rounding on a full week's freezing camping - we regretfully packed Sally up for what would turn out to be the last time and set our sights north. Time for Oregon and, after a day or two's driving up its wilder and more isolated coastline, to head for Portland. And a return to civilisation, hipster bars and central heating. 

First though, the southern Oregon coastline blitzed us. As we headed north, back on the 101, the temperature began palpably to drop and the fog whirled in off the Pacific. We knew there was a coastline there to our left, we knew it was staggeringly beautiful. But could we see an effing thing?? Intending to stop off for lunch and a mini-hike at the Redwoods State park just before the state border, we wandered along the wild bleached beach. Taking pictures for 5-10 minutes before I realised my camera was on black and white - barely distinguishable at first from the haunting, washed out shades of the shoreline. We took a meandering drive along another barely visible stretch of parkland, eventually stopping to eat at another fog-obscured bluff, where I started - not for the first time - to mutter about bear-danger in light of the many warning notices about messy picnic sites and we entered into another of our ongoing debates on the best course of action should one be intercepted by one of nature's more terrifying predators. Run or fight?

Thankfully never put to the test on this matter, we sped out and up along the chilly coast towards the Oregon Dune Recreation area and Reedsport. Pulling in for our first motel stop, we found a friendly, cheap little place and spent the night quite in the lap of luxury - laundry done, comfy bed and, when it emerged we had left it too late for dinner, this being a 9pm lights-out kind of town, my once-a-decade McDonald's dinner. The craft beers and TV movies went part of the way to making up for the latter. As did the following day's blustery off-road walk in the dunes themselves - all lunatic ship-wreck beach-heads and swampy thickets amidst huge, heaping dunes sweeping down towards the Pacific and oblivion.

Ready for Portland now: for exotic foodcarts, micro-brews and padding around town centres in search of culture. We spent two nights at a motel on the outskirts, taking the excellent European-style bus and light rail network into the centre: visiting Deschutes, the Tugboat Brewing Company and Bridgeport brewpub; eating pho, chickpea curry and softshell crab from the foodcarts that line the squares and visiting the brilliant Oregon Historical Society and its exhibitions on Oregon life, black history in the state and the anthropology of its First Nations. 

We had one wild night out tasting the ever-potent and ever-carbonated Portland microbrews in the vast, Weatherspoons-redolent bars of town and back over towards our neighbourhood in more comfy local dives. T pursued the rugby through a couple of frightening Irish bars welcoming the third-generation, emerald green-clad St Paddy's weekend crowd in as the real Irish, desolate from their 6 Nations defeat, abandoned the bars by late-morning. One of our best finds was the Dan and Louis Oyster Bar where T soaked up the morning's rugby-viewing 'refreshments' with platters of oysters from northern California to Washington while I set about the Cabernet Sauvignon. 

After a few nights we drove, improbably, across to town to park our car at a strange house before bussing over to meet a random couple I had sourced via Couchsurfing for a beer. Owen and Terra had gamely agreed to put us up for a night and, after vetting us in a low-key way over a beer, extended the offer to an extra night. Afterwards, we headed to the hipster-tastic Doug Fir to catch the spectacular Hillstomp rock their hillbilly punk roots and behold the epic cultivated beards of the Portland area. 

We liked Portland a lot. Though strangely, were never quite as taken with it as we had expected to be. It felt like one of those places where you need a key. Where wandering around in search of doesn't quite work to get the feel of a place. The streets always felt pretty quiet - and while we had some great meals, some great drinks and a very enjoyable couple of days, we didn't quite feel the connection we'd expected beforehand.

No matter. Owen and Terra were thoroughly generous hosts, cooking up breakfast and dinner and providing smart dry banter and a tonne of great local knowledge both about our onward drive and our final daytrip out into Oregon wine country. Dundee, to the south, to be exact. Taking one for the team, I took on driving duties and we had one of the most enjoyable wine-tasting days of our trip. However good an experience we'd had with California wine, we'd never been entirely bowled over with the exception of Ridge. The Pinot, in particular, had been a bit under-whelming - and having previously thought of myself as a fan I'd come to think that perhaps I could take it or leave it (or indeed that our Malbec days of South America had ruined most other grapes for us!). Turns out, no. There is, quite possibly, a Pinot for everyone, sensitive and variable as it is, and ours turned out to be of the Oregon persuasion. 

Heading only 45 minutes south out of town into the Wilamette Valley and, with Owen's instructions, we toured Duck Pond Cellars, Sokol Blosser, Domaine Drouhin, Argyle and wound the day up at Erath before hitting the sublime pizza of Redhills Market wine shop and deli. At each stop we sampled Pinots that actually hit the spot, as well as enjoying the famed sparkling whites of Argyle, picking up a dessert wine for a friend's engagement at Duck Pond and enjoying the best US Chardonnay I'd yet tried at Burgundian-owned Domaine Drouhin Oregon. But the highlight was really Sokol Blosser, set up high on the Dundee hillside and a welcome refuge as the rain began to pour on our leaving the car. The wines were already impressive and as we got further involved in a fantastically interesting and geeky conversation with the the Tasting Room sales associate on tasting notes, viticulture and Oregon and Californian wines at large we could quite happily have bedded in for the afternoon. We were treated to a 'vertical tasting' of their 2009, 2010 and 2011 Dundee Hills Pinots and, even among a day full of bright, knowledgeable and thoroughly warm Oregonian tasting room staff, Jim at Sokol Blosser stands out as a star. 

Admittedly, being the sycophantic freeloaders we are, we managed to slip our overwhelming preference for local Pinot Noirs over those of their attention-grabbing southern cousins into the first 5 minutes of every tasting conversation. However, these warm, charming Pacific Northwesters were genuinely among the most welcoming wine hosts we met on the whole trip. With or without the free extra tastings...

In fact, in general, we got an altogether Good Feeling for Oregon. Even if we'd not fallen quite in love with Portland, as we'd expected, both the city and the state in our limited time had captured our affection. The autumnal hues of Portland buildings, the friendly, dry warmth of the people we met, the wild windswept coastline, the tasty food, strong hoppy brews and quietly winning wines were quite captivating in their own understated style. Those pioneers had to be on to something after all.