Life on the Road

One day my best friend and I are sitting around the pad of our mutual bud, and he's telling me about all of his road adventures, hitchiking around the country, which was really fairly safe back then. He told me that he knew of these hot springs on some Indian reservation in New Mexico, and that he really wanted me to see them. Sounded great, I said, but I'm not going without the refrigerator.

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He talked me into it anyway, so I loaded a backpack with stuff, and we were off hitch hiking to the Jemez Hot Springs.

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It was fun until we got from L.A. to Bakersfield. We arrived about 9:00 PM and found about a dozen or so other hitch hikers stranded there at the onramp to the freeway. We bought some wine, smoked a little pot, traded stories about where we were from and were we were going. The only short haired guy was AWOL, but he was just like anyone else there, and we felt for him.

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The next morning it was unGodly hot. It was about 115 degrees and we were at the end of this long line of hitch hikers who began to look more and more like lobsters as the hours went by. One of the reasons that it was so hard to get a ride was that, well, when a car would stop all these people would run towards it, trying to escape the hell they'd found themselves in.

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But my friend and I got really, really lucky. Some guy in a big motor home stopped at the end of the line and gave us a ride straight through to Albuquerque, which was only about 60 miles from our destination. On the way he let us drive so that he could take a nap, and he even bought us lunch at a coffee shop along the way.

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From there we hitched up into the mountains with ease, then stopped at the General Store to pick up some food for the campout. Along the way hippies were stopping their cars to hand us a cold beer or a joint as we made the hike up to the trail that lead to the springs.

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It was a beautiful hike, and we were warmly received by the dozen or so hippie types who were camping there next to the springs. One older guy, Richard, had just taken to living there. He managed to prove his worth to people who had food by being an expert gatherer of firewood.

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Everybody soaked in the hot springs naked, which was all just fine, except for the day an older lady turned the corner and saw us there and went off screaming like she'd never seen a naked body before. Really. Just like the movies.

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I brought my copy of Be Here Now, and was feeling pretty spiritual about the trip anyway. But one night we were all sitting around the fire and two hippy guys come out of the woods and really blew my mind.

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First they told us how they had been lost and hungry for a long time, but how they ran across some cactus with edible fruit, and how they were crying in thankfulness as the cactus juice dripped down their faces. The one of them came up to me and recited a long biblical verse from memory and from deep in his heart somewhere, "Go ye into the mountains and beat your swords into plowshares" or something like that. And everybody was just stunned silent.

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We had a great time partying at the springs, had a feast in a cave and shared the rest of our food with everyone there so that we wouldn't have to carry it down the trail, said our goodbyes and began the long trek homewards. Using up our food wasn't the wisest move. We were going hungry, but my friend knew how to ask restaurants at closing for whatever they might be throwing away. The KFC didn't have any leftovers, but the manager was really super cool, and bought us each a three piece dinner. We were so hungry that we didn't leave anything for the ants.

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My friend had cut himself on a rock back at the springs and ended up with an infection which was turning into blood poisoning, and so we tried to flag down some cars in Kingman Arizona, but they wouldn't stop. My friend was hurting pretty badly by then, and so I went and knocked on someones door about 10: PM, and we were met at the door with a shotgun. I explained about my friend, and the owner of the house turned out to be a cop. So he made a call and a squad car transported us to the hospital so my friend could get medical attention.

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Then my old sneakers finally gave out from all the hiking and walking, which wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't so hot. But my friend had an extra pair of moccasins with him that he'd made along the road somewhere, and they worked pretty well, so we kept on truckin'.

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We got good rides coming back into the L.A. area, and man was I glad to be back home where the refrigerator was still waiting. Was quite a trip, and I got to see first hand that life on the road was exciting but not without some sacrifice. It could be done, and something about doing it made me feel that much more capable in life. And I learned all of that in just over two weeks.

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That was the thing in those days, there were so many beautiful people everywhere you went. People were kind. They were hopeful. They were generous. They were caring. And they were prospeous times, people on the road would give you rides, food and money just to help out another human being. Those were great old times, and I think that America needs to go find itself again.