After hiking around all day we finally found our site in a valley and set up camp. We drank our water out of a stream nearby then cooked and hungrily devoured some vegetarian chili—pretty good actually—and smoked the biggest fucking hydro hooter I’ve ever smoked. Between that, the hike and the pint of cheap whiskey I brought along, we slept like the dead. That moose could have walked into our camp dancing and singing and I wouldn’t have noticed.
The next day I got up early, drank deeply from the mountain runoff, breathed the fresh clean air, and just like the Pope I took a shit in the woods. It had been a few days thanks to the road food, time constraints and lack of facilities so it felt good to get the rocks out of my belly, be back in touch with my primitive side, get back to nature and all that business. John S. brought this cool soap, Dr. Bron-ner’s 13 in 1, you can use it for soap or toothpaste or laundry detergent, among other things, and it’s all natural so it was ok to use in the (really) cold water to bathe some of the smoke and travel dirt from our bodies.
Eventually we headed back down the trail leading to civilization after we cleaned up all the trash and mess we created. Real campers pack out what they pack in, it would just be a desecration to leave trash or alter the campsite in any way. I was really sore from yesterdays trek and I thought Mike the Viking was going to pass out he was breathing so hard. We really did hike a long ways out in the wilderness. I felt like a conquering hero returning home when we finally were out of the woods and back at the van, all haggard and beat up from some battle. I don’t know, I suppose it’s the way I feel after a long day of manual labor, like I’ve accomplished something. Not necessarily something significant to anyone else in the world, but something.
We were all smellier and gamier than ever, I needed a breath mint for my armpit, if you know what I mean. On the way out of the park there was a back up on the road thanks to a line of cars that had stopped to take pictures of some wildlife, another roadside attraction but this time it just made me smile. I imagined a lonely animal with an insecure ego stepping out of the woods at a certain time everyday and letting people fawn over it. We stopped and had a late breakfast in a great roadside diner with a giant cow skin couch that we had a lady take our picture on. After a quick poor mans shower in the bathroom sink I felt closer to human again.
I’ll miss Yellowstone, but after a super-sized bowl to commemorate the good memories we got underway again with the wind at our backs and good tunes to spin the wheels. Someday I want to go back to YNP and see even more of the park. I would like to bring Jenifer here. God I miss her so much already. I’m really looking forward to maybe seeing her in Oregon.
Hey Boo-boo, Idaho’s coming up next.
Passed through the spud state yesterday. Dan and Jerry are supposed to be somewhere in Idaho visiting their Grandparents around this time but I didn’t see them anywhere on the highways we navigated. Found a gas station that of all things had pay showers! The shower I used resembled something similar to a urinal from the Mos Eisley Cantina, but it afforded me the chance to wash off a few pounds of dirt and change out flannel shirts. I didn’t expect much for a dollar shower and somewhere out on the open road there is a trucker missing a large portion of his body hair. BLECHHHH. Bigfoot is loose and incognito with a dull safety razor in Idaho. Alert the masses! Call out the National Guard!
We alternated sleeping and driving through the night and arrived in Eugene, OR this morning! Ate a great breakfast at Denny’s then stopped at a local market to buy fruits, vegetables and other sundries. I could tell we were getting close when I started spotting the older hippies buying groceries with their litters of ragtag hippy children. We aren’t on the coast yet, but I can smell the ocean in the air now.
We finally arrived in the parking lot where the show will be and it is un-believe-able. I’m so excited and so unbelievably stupidly high. All I can see are vans and campsites everywhere, all populated with moving dots of people wearing color and flair. A person might think that Volkswagens were the pinnacle and height of design, possibly even the only vehicles ever manufactured, if they were visiting from off-planet. People everywhere here look like I do! I feel like E.T. when his space ship finally came home for him. (I am on some kind of sci-fi kick today). Jim Speices’ girlfriend is here and we’re setting up camp with a few other people we know from Denton. Shane and Cheryl and YES! Jenifer’s here too, my little hippy chick. I’ll write more later, I can see she’s excited to see me and I need to be near her now before I go through withdrawals.
—Evening—
Wow, Jenifer and I talked, eXplored and hung out together most of the day. I was so thrilled; she could have literally led me around like a balloon. Lighter than air, comprende? She told me all about Kristoff getting on her nerves during the drive and that she missed me. She missed me! And it was as if we reacted as if we hadn’t seen each other in years. We smoked some native Oregon hydro that Mike the Viking bought and then wandered all over the place. I didn’t know it used to be legal to grow marijuana here. Apparently there is an entire network of private growers that cultivate the Washington/Oregon/Northern California areas. Police are related to the growers and the growers have gotten involved in local politics and their children have grown up as a part of the cities, helping to make the laws lax and letting the positive cycle continue. Oregon is so cool; I would love to live here. Any state that has no self-service gas stations is all right in my book.
The parking lot outside where the Grateful Dead show will be held is phenomenal. So many people follow the Dead on tour that they only play in places that will designate camping areas and allow people to sleep in their vehicles outside each show. Not that I’ve noticed much sleeping going on. Still, it’s nice for a band to be in tune with their core fan base so closely.
During the day I found “Shakedown Street”, which is apparently the name of a famous Dead album or song, but it’s also the area where everyone plies his or her wares. Sort of a third-world medieval market that runs through a gauntlet of vans with people selling shirts and stickers along with some shadier looking people yelling out names of the various drugs they have for sale. People are selling food and signs proclaiming “Pot Brownies” are posted everywhere. The people that follow the Dead have developed their own eco-system that revolves around goods they sell to visitors, but they depend on what they earn to live. After looking around I kind of felt sorry for a lot of people on tour that looked so run down and haggard. The bright tie-dyes and colors everywhere are like a camouflage worn to hide how hard their life really is. A contrast of severe ups and downs.
I did manage to accomplish one of my goals here. I bought a sheet of acid for $80 bucks. Hooray! I was kind of apprehensive about the whole deal because the tabs didn’t have any sort of picture on them, but this girl, Shawn, a chick Jenifer and I both knew from Denton, was quite obviously tripping her balls off on the shit, so I bought it. It is excellent and very clean. I should have expected quality having bought it from a hippy in an orange VW bus just a few hundred miles North of the acid capital of the world. I’ve never had acid that didn’t have some sort of cartoon character or crest printed on the tabs, but then this is the real deal, paper dipped in pure LSD. Totally clean stuff. The guy tried to get me to give him more money saying he would see me at the shows in California and give me more acid then. I guess I just look gullible.