Coast to Coast Trip 1966

Letters to Sue & Eileen

"When you get to know this country, when you get to know her heart,
You'll find New York and Frisco ain't so very far apart."
Peter LaFarge

Birmingham, Alabama, 11 pm, October 22, 1966

        Are you out of your mind, Susan? Do you honestly think I could put it down here in words, even so much as a hundredth of it? And like poor Ti Jean? [Jack Kerouac] The mountains. How could I possibly describe the mountains? With their crazyquilt pattern of autumn trees. The blue mountains. Yes! Blue. Wraithlike mountains in the distance slowly growing solid. Hillsides of Virginia cars, rusting. A hillside of horses, gray, dappled, all colors. The ridges and strata of our Mother Earth where the machines of man have torn away at her skin, leaving scars of highway and turnpike. The hills, the mountains, so near, so far, looking like cardboard cutouts stacked up away from each other, so clear-cut, so distinctive, in perspective. Ragged mountains with their tops chewed off.
        And if I cannot describe the mountains, how could I ever describe the infinite forms of water? Lakes, rivers, streams, creeks, swamps--all water (maker and unmaker of mountains). A jutting cliff overlooking a still bend in a river. An island or a shore terraced where the waters had receded. Tumbling creeks, majestic slow rivers. A river threading through a plain like an Alaskan scene. O, so much, Susan.
        And the cattle and the cows. The horses. Dogs. Yes, even a few cats. Buzzards circling about or laboriously flapping their wings. Crows tearing at the highway carrion. A cow wading in a stream. A black and a white horse in a field. A black horse and a black bull together, so alike in their dissimilarity. Three horses in a field--a black, a white, and a roan. Yes, and sheep.
        O, and the view from Skyline Drive west of Charlottesville. God! Miles and miles of valley. Hills. Outcrops. Sheafs of stacked corn stalks. The town of Buchanan, Va. (Pop. 1349) A forest fire laying a downwind blanket of smoke across a valley in the distance, And the towns by the sides of the freeways, underneath, below, so inviting. The little cities. Chattanooga. ("Goin' to Chattanoogy, sorry I can't take you, pretty mama. I can't abide no woman who goes round sniffin' glue.") A dilapidated old mill in the woods by a stream, a still and silent water wheel. The ramshackle Tennessee hillside houses. A tin-roofed church. A sudden peek through two hills to the plains beyond.
        And what was going on inside me? Nothing. (Nothing?) Well, not as much as you'd expect. A slight exhilaration, yes, and a depression to see those inviting, tantalizing, twisting country roads go past unexplored. And I know that it's good that you or Eileen didn't come along--for I'd have mentioned my desires and they would be reinforced and sooner or later off we'd go, up into some unbeaten path, far from Dallas. But there is no great elation or depression--I drove hard and well, part of my beast. I feel sorry that Washington has lost its air of discovery for me, and have rediscovered it on the road. But eventually everything had to blur in my attention to the road. (Ah, the view of Chattanooga at dusk from high across the river!) This morning I told Eileen that sometimes it seems that life is nothing but a series of goodbyes. She said it is also a series of hellos. More on that later.
        The biggest disappointment was that I didn't stop off at Hungry Mother State Park in Marion, Va. (It's real! Yes, it's real! One more time.) Hungry Mother State Park?!?
Tyler, Texas, 10:15 pm, October 23, 1966
    It began like all my mornings in Birmingham, Alabama, have begun. I wasn't prepared to leave until my watch read 8:20. But the car wouldn't start. I walked to the gas station and found out the time was 6:20. I also found out that they could not come help me for awhile. I called AAA, who sent a truck that pushed me for a start, then stalled itself. We had to jump cables to my battery to get his truck started. (It wasn't my battery that was bad but the starter. It's happened before.)
    Despite this, despite frequent stops in a fruitless search for someone to repair my starter (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't), despite a map misreading that cost me about half an hour, I covered 590 miles in 12 1/2 hours.
    Anyway, I wasn't in the mood to enjoy the trip as much as yesterday's. My tail was sore, the weather was hot until a rainburst east of Shreveport cooled things off. Anyway, much of the territory was flat (the Mississippi flood plain) and not as exciting as yesterday's. Not necessarily less beautiful. Just less exciting. In Brighton, Alabama, I smelled something like formaldehyde and for a moment I was back in high school dissecting frogs. Fields full of cotton like poppy flowers. It grew wild along the road and I picked some. Steer grazing among the trees in an orchard. Quicksand marshes. The Mississippi election posters--"Defeat LBJ All the Way."
    The motel was east of Birmingham, so I went through the center at 7:30-8:00 of a Sunday morning. I thought I heard a muffled explosion in the distance. Wine flowed in the streets.
    I ate breakfast in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; lunch in Delhi, Louisiana; and supper here.

Big D, 2:15 p.m., October 24, 1966
    And now to relax. This room is costing me more by itself than I spent on either of the past two days all put together. Still, it's cheaper than many motel rooms I've slept in.
    Don't sound much like Jack Kerouac, do I? That's because I'm not Jack Kerouac. I'm about halfway through Desolation Angels and anxious as hell to get through to San Francisco. I got to thinking: if you have to draw analogies, my old pal George Wagner is Jack Kerouac and I am Cody Pomeray (or Neal Cassidy). I think of calling Cassidy when I reach Frisco. He's 40 now, with a paunch. But George is a religious mystic wino like Kerouac, whereas I am a wild high-wheeling happy-go-lucky manic intelligent-but-not-cultured idiot like Cassidy.
    I have enjoyed sitting on the bed in Tyler and here in Dallas watching myself play the guitar in a mirror. Goddamn it, I'm great!
    I'm on the 17th floor (really 16th--no 13th), looking east. All the buildings are short and squat except for one to my right. In the flat horizon distance, you can see the small green-brown Texas trees scattered across the plains. I can see the superhighway I can in on and I wonder just how far away is the horizon?
    I left my car at the local Sunbeam dealer to look at the starter and exhaust (which is loose and buzzing).

Midland, Texas, 10 pm, October 28, 1966
    Everything you've heard about Texas is true. At least the central part. My God, what a beauty! Not the picturesque beauty of the Tennessee hills but a stark, almost terrifying beauty. It is almost too much, it really takes a big man, a Texan, to be able to stand it. Yes, I am in love with Texas and I know that someday I will come back here to live for at least a few months, maybe years. I cannot describe it. You've seen a part of it on TV, in the movies, and it's true, it's real. But here it's all around you, miles and miles of rolling country, like a gently swelling ocean, then mesas and hills, all covered with the scrubby, squat trees of the Texas plains. Cattle, horses, and goats grazing among the shrubs. Potted cactus growing wild. Ah, it's good to be on this road but it's hot.
    I left Dallas at 2:45 pm and arrived here at 7:15, eating supper outside Abilene. The car would have cost me $20 in Dallas but I charged it.
    There's nothing left to say. Or too much. And I must sleep.
"I'm a-leavin' in the first hour of the morn.
I'm bound for the Bay of Mexico
Or maybe the coast of Californ.
I still might strike it lucky on a highway goin' west
Though I'm travelin' on a path-beaten trail
I will write you a letter from time to time
As I'm ramblin' you can travel with me too."
--Bob Dylan
Gila Bend, Arizona, 10 pm, October 29, 1966
"I've travelled thru that Texas plain;
One of these days I'll go back again.
I'm just a weary, wanderin', wonderin' fool, oh yeah.
A weary, wanderin', wonderin' fool, that's me."     I've missed (just barely) some towns I wanted to hit. My aunt lives in Arlington, Texas, between Dallas and Fort Worth, but I don't have their phone or address and they're not in the book. C'est la guerre. I wanted to go through Abilene, so I could say it's not the prettiest town I've ever seen, but I took the bypass instead.
    I split the Midland scene at 7 a.m. after having coffee with the motel owner. The oil fields between Midland and Odessa did not impress me. There were very few of the classic oil rigs (only one that was in operation), mostly the ungainly awkward heron-bobbing pumps and the New Jersey chem lab stench of the refineries. On to the Pecos River, the oil rigs thinned out and there was desert. The land began to change and soon I was surrounded by the folds, wrinkles, and dimples of our good Mother Earth. On either side they groped their stretching fingers into the desert. Although the road stretched out in front, there was beauty on either side.
    I ate breakfast in Van Horn with the Navajo ranchers in their jeans and cowboy hats. I was wearing my black jeans and my yellow-and-black plaid shirt (but not flannel).
    The long haul to El Paso was interrupted only by a detour thru Ysleta, where I saw a couple of tortilla factories and enjoyed watching the teenage Mexican girls in tight pants. It was interesting: I passed thru El Paso and Tucson today, both mentioned in my reading today in Desolation Angels.
    I left Texas at 11:50 local time (12:50 my time). In all, I spent 16 hours 35 minutes driving across 854 miles of Texas.
    I have seen Mexico. Haven't set foot in it, but I've seen it--across the Rio Grande and thru the wire fences of El Paso.
    I had lunch, a bowl of chili, in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Through New Mexico and western Texas, I would drive through the middle of things. On one side would be an irrigated agricultural section, on the other desert. To my left, south, the mountains rose up like the pointed tits and nipples of our good mother; to my right, north, were mesas and tablelands, flat ridges of mountain.
    Just before leaving New Mexico, I had a choice of roads, according to AAA. I took the fast one instead of the one thru the mountains. Which is the way it's been going. I'll be glad when I can loaf and take things easy. How I wanted to take off and hike thru the desert to the nearby hills. Perhaps it's just as well that I couldn't though. It probably would've been fatal.
    But even the desert route went through Texas Canyon, a heart-tearing jumble of boulders and cliffs crying to be clambered over, the breathtaking canyons and the rills and valleys. (In Texas, the distant cliffsides took on tender rainbow hues, pink, light blue, magenta. O God!)
    Down Texas Canyon to Benson, where I phone Eileen, so full of desire to tell someone.
    As I passed Tucson (a big nothing) the sun began to set. The sunset lasted for over an hour, until I was beyond Casa Grande. It was not by far the most spectacular sunset I have ever seen, but it was very satisfying, a great collection of gentle carmine, orange-red, and delicate rose rays and clouds. One cloud hung over the west like a log, a luminescent orange-red with streaks of purple-gray like the bark of a dead tree.
    I arrived here at Gila Bend for supper, intending to continue on to Yuma. But when I sat down in Mrs. Wright's Dining Room, I had a spell of dizziness and decided to stay here for the night. Despite her name, Mrs. Wright served an excellent Mexican dinner (I wish I could stay here long enough for another one). It was well worth the wait, for I drove past Tucson and Casa Grande, looking for a place to eat, and they took their time at Mrs. Wright's.
    (When I was ten, I had a group of imaginary Ohio towns with imaginary baseball teams. The original first baseman of the South River Eagles (they wore the white hats) was Harold "Fatty" Tucson, prounounced Tuck-son not Too-sahn.)
    After I checked in at the motel I walked on down the road until I came to an A&W Root Beer Stand. The girl was typically Arizonian, thin, wearing faded blue jean bermuda-cut shorts. I fell in love with her at once.
    In all, I drove 751 miles today in 13 1/2 hours. I just barely missed my spring 1965 Phoenix (56 miles north of Casa Grande), where in Tempe I went to JD's and watched a typical Arizonian girl, thin, wearing tight hip riders with a red belt and a halter in a discotheque.
San Ysidro, California, 4:45 pm, October 30, 1966

STOMPIN' THRU THE TULIES
    I didn't see my first Saguaro cactus until between Tucson and Casa Grande. I saw a few more on the moonlit desert at 6 a.m. this morning but that was all except for a few at Telegraph Pass. Some of them are downright obscene.
    As I drove from Casa Grande to Yuma in the pre-dawn hour, an owl flapped across my headlights and a jack rabbit darted across the road. The dawn slowly and unspectacularly opened up behind me.
    Orange groves led into Yuma, where I had breakfast. Placed carefully among the orange bushes (trees?) were tall orange poles with airplane propellors on top.
    I left Arizona and entered California at 8:00. Here were the classic sand dunes of the desert, Sahara-esque glides of earth and yellow dirt, sand, with wind-sculptured sides of beauty.
    I was less than 300 miles from San Diego, so I finally succumbed to temptation. It damn near proved fatal. Instead of bombing on to Diego, I cut down to Calexico. On the way, a road runner darted across in front of me, spreading his wings in triumph as he reached the other side. (Another bird down the road hadn't been so lucky. I passed his surprisingly large body in silence . . . but not before seeing a burrowing owl blinking sleepily in front of his nest by the side of the road.) (All I need now to make my trip complete is a real wild live armadillo.)
    Then to Mexicali, where what few road signs there were were in some foreign language! I darted from street to street, down a dusty unpaved highway, off and back to the center of town, where I saw a bus that said "Tijuana." I followed him out the same way I'd come to that dusty highway and out into the desert.
    I finally found out what desert means. It means heat. Slowly the temperature gauge rose. The road dwindled off, a straight perspective arrow, to the distant mountains. When at last I reached them, there were trucks, a bus. The temperature gauge reached 200. I passed, I was free! Slowly, the temperature full. And, oh, the starkness of the Mexican mountains. A high plain then took me slowly to Tijuana, where again I got lost, asked directions, and came over to the L&M side (I mean the United States border). No trouble with the policio, and I camped out here, within walking distance of TJ. But not yet. Not so far.
    After I settled in here, I drove on to San Diego and where the conference is being held. I have a reservation for tomorrow but I may cancel it and stay here instead. It's $5/day cheaper. However the other is posher. They were having a camera convention, with bathing suited etc. models all over the place. Only one or two were really good looking but wow! the skin!
    There is a smell about southern California that is unmistakable. No, it's not the smog, although the smog may be an element of it. Perhaps a stagnant salt breeze. It's a southern California aroma, though, that is neither unpleasant nor particularly pleasant. I caught a whiff of it on the freeway today and nibbles of vagrant, long-dormant memories banged at the shutters of my mind.
    Then too there were the ghostly naval ships in the harbor, in drydock.
    So that's it. Tonight I will spend in Tijuana maybe, in my black jeans, my yellow-and-black plaid shirt, and my wine-colored Peter LaFarge open-necked sweater. Yes, and my green tennis shoes.
    So don't go away, kids, the fun is just beginning. Thanks for being.
    I said I would say something about helloes and goodbyes. The trouble is that when you say goodbye, you know whether or not you mean it--you're saying goodbye to a part of your soul, your being. When you say hello, you say it to the future and you never know for sure that the person will become a part of you or not. You can only hope. I remember the first time I met Bill, Bob, and Eileen--they were definite and sharp high points of my life at that time. I even vaguely remember the first time I met you, Sue (since this is the person I started the letter to although it's now to both you and Eileen), although you apparently cannot. I cannot remember the first time I met Dean Anschultz, although I do remember the first time I saw him. And my early acquaintance with George Wagner is lost. One day I was walking down the road with him, telling him a poem of mine had finally been accepted! So, for me at least, it's a world of goodbyes not helloes. The important helloes are often lost, and some that look important turn out not to be so and are forgotten.
    And what do I have to show for 2 hours in Tijuana? A weak beer, a bag of corn chips, and a tie. And three offers ("You want a girrl?") from cab drivers ("French movies?"). It was a test, really, to see how they handle us border-crossers. I stopped in a guitar shop--all cheapies, $15-$30. I tuned one and started to play my stupid classical exercises. The guy comes back, we talk, he goes to the back room, and comes out with a beautiful classical guitar--$160. He plays it. I'm one-upped. (I expected it. He wasn't really good, just better than me.) It's got good action, feels good, but of course I don't have $160.
    Have you ever heard of Denny's? There's one in Yuma and one in San Ysidro (as well as other places). I made the mistake twice. I didn't recognize the name here but I recognized the menu.

North Hollywood, 2 a.m., November 5, 1966
    Well, I am now working on two letters to you--one written on the road, on the fly, "on location," so to speak--and the other, this one, written more in moments of introspection, in my motel, hotel, or whatever rooms. They will overlap, underlap, and probably be mailed together.
    I am on my own now, at last--the meetings are over. I have seen Tijuana. I have seen some of my old Caltech friends and the campus itself. Things have not changed drastically. I have not taken that "ice-blue liquid," as I indicated in my other letter (the one that is being written on location), but the chance is there. I don't think I'll take it.
    But let me start from where I left off (approximately) in my first letter.
    Let's start with Tijuana and run through that. My first night (Sunday) was essentially described already. The next night when I went down there, instead of walking along the regular tourist route (my motel was within walking distance of the border), I took what I thought might be a short cut. It took me through dark streets and old Mexican shacks and non-tourist areas. I was a bit scared but very exhilarated. If only I could speak Spanish!
    Anyway when I finally got to Revolucion Avenue, I stopped to listen to the first cab driver who accosted me and finally asked him if he could get me some pot. "Oh, yes, 65 a kilo." But I didn't take him on. Walking around, I stopped and had a real Mexican Dinner-- which is completely different from what we had in Bethesda, Sue, and also much different from any I've had anywhere in the States.
    One of the steerers had a much better gimmick though. He just gave me a card--"Good for free second drink at the Manhattan Bar." This was pay dirt. The place was full of hustlers, whom I had to keep shaking off. The strippers stripped . . . period. They didn't have much in the way of movement, they just walked around nude, coming over to the ringside tables to pull a man's (or boy's) head down to her, to offer their bodies for fondling.
    Anyway, on up the Coast to Los Angeles.
    I left San Diego at 5 Thursday night and made it to LA's Civic Center (Pershing Square, etc.) around 7. After walking around a bit, I decided to go on up to Canoga Park and see Dean.
    Digression: When I was a freshman at Caltech in 1956-57, I hung around with 3 upper classmen--sophomore Norm Velinty (Hood, Norton Valentine), and juniors John Price (Horseface, Jan Prince) and Dean Wesley "Deano" Anschultz (Cricket, Dan Auspitz). (The names in parentheses are the names as they appear in my stories.) Dean was our nominal leader, if anyone could be a leader in such a group of individualists. "Deano" was a nickname I coined. (In the beginning, we often went out for pizza at Dino's in Pasadena.) I liked Deano and admired him but I had no desire to be like him (who wants to be a chinless Cricket?). I merely wanted to be around him as much as possible. (In this sense, Deano was the first of my "comrades.") I spent the Christmas of '56 with Deano and his parents, Kenny and Toots. Dean is the only unspoiled single child I've ever known--they made his work hard. And he called them by their first names.
    Anyway, we all flunked out together. Deano and John eventually got their degrees from Caltech after 6 years, and Norm went to UCLA. In 1963, I spent a week at Dean's house when I flew out for a summer conference.
    Anyway, Dean and Cathy have a two-year-old son now, Reese, who is quite independent and self-reliant, but not spoiled to any degree. He knows that things are expected of him, and soon some responsibilities. In short, he's like his old man. They're also encouraging him to call his parents by their first names.
    Dean didn't seem particularly surprised when I called. (I thought when I called him "Deano" he'd guess who it was, but others have picked up the nickname.) He called John but we never got ahold of him, then Velinty, who popped over on his motorcycle. (Dean has two bikes, a 1930 Chevy pickup truck, a Mark I Sprite, and a 1957 Chevy station wagon.) Dean was home alone. While we were talking and waiting for Velinty to show, Dean went into the kitchen and brought back a little vial that was a nice cool blue. He told me to take it back to Washington with me--I let it sit on the table and, when Velinty arrived, Dean put it in his pocket. Yesterday I asked him if he was serious and he said yes. However, I didn't get the vial then or tonight. Maybe I'll get it in Frisco. I don't know.
    When I was out in '63, all of the other 3 members of the Big Four (as I called us) were married. Now Velinty has divorced his wife, gone to an English-speaking college in Mexico, and came back a Zen Buddhist. He was somewhat subdued (for Velinty (when I was at Tech, we had a special term for the measurement of sound--a microVelinty)). In all, it was a very pleasant evening.
    As you can see, the group is still very individualistic and certainly not run-of-the-mill suburban computer programmers. Dean got his acid from Velinty. He had tried it only two weeks earlier himself and was much impressed. ("You'll never be quite the same again.") We listened to Ravi Shankar the other night for a few moments later but Cathy said, "I can only appreciate Shankar when I've been smoking pot."
    After Norm left, Dean and I went out for a ride in the California foothills and canyons in the night (or morning). I sacked out in Dean's guest room (where I had stayed 3 years ago).
    Friday I checked into this motel (which is in southern Hollywood, not northern Hollywood) on Western Avenue around the corner from Hollywood Boulevard. In fact, it's within walking distance of Hollywood and Vine, as I found out last night. Down the street are the 20th Century Fox TV studios. (I saw a cowboy and a couple of sailors, and other movie-looking types.) In the other direction is Griffith Park, of James "Rebel Without a Cause" Dean fame. There are 3 skin flicks within easy walking distance.
    In the afternoon I went over to the old campus. Most of the old buildings are there but there are quite a few new ones. The "temporary" buildings (like Washington's "temporary" buildings) had already been replaced when I was there in '63. The one thing I did notice were the many motorcycles at the student houses.
    Then I went up to Mt. Wilson, which I've described in my other letter (which you won't receive for a while yet). I spent the evening again with Dean. We went slot-car racing, which is very enjoyable, then watched two SF movies on TV. One was "Animal Farm," done as a full-length cartoon in England. It was quite well done.
    I chanced to check the phonebook for a couple of numbers--my old girlfriend, Tenaya Stewart, was still in the book; a guy who used to work with me at Goddard, Troy Davis, is here; and I understand one of my high school classmates, Cliff Ibsen, is living in Pasadena. The only one I called was Tenny, but her phone and been disconnected and information had no new number for her.
    I went down to Venice Saturday afternoon, hoping to find a coffee house. It's a nice area, looks fairly cheap (lots of used goods stores), but no coffeehouses. I again spent the evening with the Anschultzes, listening to records, talking, playing with their poodle Blaze (who was a puppy in 1963 and who is a tremendous ball-catcher) and with Reese, drinking wine, and toasting chocolate marshmallows in the fireplace.
    This evening, when I went over for dinner, Kenny and Toots (as I said before, Dean's parents) were there. It was a pleasant surprise, as I hadn't seen them in 10 years. They're still young. Kenny, like Dean, is very talented--he made 3 tables in their (Dean's and Cathy's) house, with stone designs under glass that are very fascinating. (One, I think, would blow your mind if you were really high. As would one of their 3 bathrooms, the one with the infinite mirrors. Which I could stare into for years.)
    Tomorrow morning (it is now 11:45 pm Sunday, Nov. 7), I leave for Frisco. There's a computer conference up there. I'm not going to it, but Deano might. Since I didn't push him for the acid, I don't know. But he might bring it with him. I won't ask him for it again; I already feel too indebted to the guy.
    So that's the way it's been. I have enjoyed my stay here more than I did in 1963, for I have had my own wheels and been more reliant on myself than on Deano. The girls are still more attractive than anywhere else. There are the ever present motorcycles (cops with leather jackets--you wouldn't know they were cops if it wasn't for the badge). I have gorged myself on tostadas (which I love dearly and, Sue, we shall have to eat in a good Mexican restaurant sometime--that one in Bethesda is definitely not representative) and on Orange Juliuses, a sort of whipped orange juice drink that is really different. They didn't impress me in '56 but I had one in '63 and I couldn't wait to get back for more, and I have been closing the Orange Julius gap in my life rapidly the past week. There are two that I've seen on the East Coast, one on Route 1 in New Jersey outside New York City, but I've always passed it in the middle of the night.
    I don't remember where the other one is.
    I am so anxious to get back. I am so desirous of staying. How can the joys of life cause so much pain?
    Anyway, the hello of Thursday, Eileen, has turned into the goodbye of Sunday. But you're righter than I realized.
Mt. Wilson, 4:45 pm, November 4, 1966     I am very despondent. But it is a joyful despair. It is the despair of a man who has seen more beauty than he can ever comprehend in a lifetime. It is the despair of a man who has so many friends he could never possibly spend as much time with each as he would wish. It is the despair of a man who has drunk from that little vial of icy-blue liquid.
    This is the first time I have been on Mt. Wilson in ten years, and the first time alone. There is not much to see--a heavy blanket of smog hangs over LA and even the foothills are lost. The reddish-yellow sun hangs over the air, tinting its upper level with a pale magenta that shades rapidly into bluish-gray. To my left is the closest peak, clear and distinct, unsmogged--but it is the only one. Behind me are TV towers and further off to my left is the observatory. It is chilly. There is brush, pines, and cactus growing here, about 6000 feet up. Deano and I tried to climb it once but gave up at 3000.
    The east side. Even here the smog has filtered into the valleys. But the mountains surround the horizon, a blackish green and blue with man's brown streaks along them, over them. A thin line of pinkish-purple clouds. hangs over the peaks.
    The world drops off sharply beneath me, to indistinguishable forests of pine. Dirt roads snake across the ridges and thin lines of road cut across the slopes. Behind me a rock upjuts for 100 feet. A hawk floats across it, hundreds of feet higher. The wind, a breeze really, ruffles my hair and the distant peaks beckon to me. But I must go back to Deano and Norm and John.
    (Monday morning)
    I'm watching the Clancy Brothers and Makem on the vidiot machine. It's raining (LA style) outside. The smog was pretty bad my first 2 days here (couldn't see the mountains), cleared up yesterday only to be replaced by clouds which then precipitated. It's pouring now. (Snow up north.)
    I will loaf up the Coast. Considering the weather, I doubt if I'll make SF before Tuesday night. I may not camp at Sur if it remains wet (and cold).
BIG SUR, 7:15 pm, Nov. 7
    What is there to say? I need not describe this wild coast to you, Eileen; I cannot possibly describe it to you, Sue. Not that it is any more beautiful than other places I have been--it is that the only words I can think of are so stale, so flat; they would make it seem common and ordinary. But, like the rest of this old planet, there is nothing about the Big Sur coastline that is common and ordinary.
    I made very poor time today--it took me over 3 hours to cover the first 100 miles. But that was because I drove through Hollywood and Beverly Hills on Sunset Boulevard. It's probably just as well. It was raining, a typical Los Angeles torrential downpour, and the freeways were probably jampacked.
    I splurged on a steak-and-eggs breakfast in the middle of Hollywood.
    Except for the surf, somewhat roiled by the rainstorm, and the mountains (which in places (Moro Bay) looked like pictures from a child's fairy tale book), and the winding twisting marvelous roads, and the splendid canyons, and the sunset on the Pacific, and the foothills that slid into the sea, and the phantasmal cloud-shapes, it was pretty boring.
    When I got that $50 bill (or paid it) last Thursday, I knew it would spoil the rest of my trip. Why, for a good 4 hours, I had a leaden knot in the pit of my stomach. (When I told Deano, "I'm riding for a fall," he said, "I don't think so.") (Speaking of Dean, when I was out last time, he had grown a mustache. This time he had a goatee to go with it. Looks like Mitch Miller. (or Lenin)). (No, not Mitch Lenin!)
    For the record, Big Sur is 344 miles from the Bon-Air Motel in Hollywood. That includes frequent pull-overs to the side of the road and sundry side trips (not always intentionable). I spent 9 1/2 hours on the road. Dean is not coming up to SF, so I won't get the LSD.

Malibu, 9:45 am, November 7, 1966
    Surf's up! Can you hear roaring and crashing in the background? It's raining and the storm, coming westward, has picked up the sea and deposited it on the beach. What a scene!
Further up the Coast (in time and distance)
    A cloud hangs darkly over the headland up in front as the breakers maintain a steady thunderous background, punctuated by roars and splashes ululating with the tide. I have never seen so many colors to the sea: a dark heavy blue in the horizon, gradually lightening; streaks of muddy brown near the beaches; a dark algae-colored magenta or purple; and (most surprising of all) a bright and livid green!
    I'm standing out on the beach now, the wind blowing a seasalt breeze in my face. Behind me is a line of stark imposing cliffs, a semi-circle, suddenly alive with patches of green in the fresh rain. A solid wall of white water lies in front of her, gently hisssing when the breaking is done then rising to a roar and back down again. It has worn this beach so that there is about a 3-foot cliff in the beach sand in front of me.
    I watch the curl go splashing up the beach, the roar beginning to my left, moving on past me toward the headland. There is a 10-foot high spray on the rock walls.
About 40 mile south of Big Sur     !
Later -
    I'm stopping every 5 miles or so (it's an effort to keep driving).
    Hello, gull, sitting out there on that rock high above the ocean (even with me but separated by a gap), and this surf is UP!
    Describe this? You must be kidding.
    All right. The sun is sinking (visibly) into the horizon mist (but not the sea!) Behind me (I'm on the side of a canyon) a cliff wall is all golden rose--the clouds the same color, mixed with steel bluish-gray. And of course the breakers. There--the sun is gone.
    (The ocean turned blood-red.)

Pfeiffer State Park, Nov. 8     There is something about a pine forest that is more religious by far than any church I've ever been in. (I haven't drunk from a stream in a long time.)

Further up the Coast     >To my left, a bit behind me, a bridge spans a canyon. To my right, a bit ahead of me, the sea has carved a cave out of the rock. Below me (how many hundreds of feet?) lies the upside-down skeleton of a car, rusted on the beach where the waves pound for how many years?
    Further down the beach, they were really comin in, but I couldn't reach them. Here the surf is broken by beds of kelp.
    One thing that is easily lost here at Sur is your sense of distance. Things begin to look very close, within easy walking distance (or falling distance), and you really have to wrench your mind back to realize how really far away is the surf, the beach, the mountains. It is a land of exagerration.

BLUE UNICORN, 10 p.m., Nov. 10 (I think)
    All right, all right, all right.
    What can I say? Where are the words? "Hello." "Goodbye." They're only words. "Just remember: it's only a game." Those were Mike's last words to me. Who's Mike? His real name in Makoto Shiota. He was explaining (whenever he could get a word in edgewise) Zen Buddhism to me. Which I would listen to. But not Velenthead (excuse me, I mean, Norm Velinty). Because Mike is from Japan. And so I figure he's been raised in more of it than Velinty will ever or can ever really know. (But who were Velinty's teachers? Might they not have been Makoto Shiota's?) Let's set it all down. But it can't be done.
    "So you don't like San Francisco, eh?"
    "Oh, it's all right."
    "What do you mean: 'It's all right'?"
    "Well, I still don't see what all the fuss is about."
    "Why don't you get out and talk to people? Go into the coffee houses and say 'I just got into town on the back of a freight, I've got five bucks in my pocket, and I'm looking for a place to stay'?"
    "Aren't I a big enough hippocrite already?"
    "Well, if you don't make an effort what do you expect?"
    "Just what I got: another city--not bad, not good. Another city."
    "And what the hell are you staring at?"
    "That saying on the wall."
    "Which one?"
    "'I have a black Cadillac and every day a part falls off it. But they have lots of parts.'"
    "So what?"
    "It's signed by Tarragoo."
    "What's that got to do with it?"
    "Never mind. How can you understand? I don't. I really don't."
    (Is it Nirvana to walk through a redwood forest? Not in awe. Not in fear. Just in peace and comfort. Like a child. Forever.)
    Where was I? Sur. Big Sur. Kerouac's Sur. And the upside-down rusted skeleton of a car from a long-forgotten accident?
    Sur. I'm getting old, Eileen. I've got to walk more, Sue. Climb mountains. Swim lakes. Camp out in the cold nights. I'm soft. I've grown very soft indeed. I scrambled down a cliff to the surf and stared, hypnotized by the water crashing, smashing, gnashing at the rocks. I went to Point Lobos Park in Carmel and watched the friendly gulls, heard the sea lions bark, and waited quietly for the skitterish crabs to overcome their shyness. And I watched the water. Above all I watched the water. I watched it till it swirled around my ankles on the beach. And I left it behind, sadly, but in anticipation. For I was going to San Francisco. The fabled Frisco of my dreams. That everyone I had known, no matter how different, no matter how much in disagreement on other things, everyone loved. And I came with my heart open, my arms wide, my legs spread, and I honestly did, Eileen. I wanted to love SF, I wanted to dig it, I wanted to make it mine and be made a part of it, for I thought I could, yes, even in so short a time, that this city was different, San Francisco, the city of Neal Cassidy, Jack Kerouac, Eileen Goenner, Tommy Embler, Bob Danek, and how many others? But it was not to be. For Frisco stared back and said, "So what? Do you, a mere human being, think that you merely have to stand there open and I will bend to you, beg for you, live and die for your hopes and desires alone? What do you have to offer for me? I'm not going to give you anything, buddy; you're gonna have to work for it."
    And so I found out that San Francisco was not a dream, but was in reality the same city as Washington and New York. Yes, and Toronto, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, Dallas, Montreal, San Diego. The only fable-land, for me, at least, is Los Angeles. I'm sorry, Eileen, I really am. Not for you. Not to you. For myself. A little part of the small child left inside me died when I arrived in San Francisco Tuesday night. And no matter what happened since, despite you and Sue, despite Jim and Pam Alvey, despite Mike, despite Herb here at the Blue Unicorn, despite Irene Kitagawa, yes, even despite Dylan Thomas (who (would you believe it?) made it all possible), despite all the wonderful people in this wonderful city (and really it is . . . for is it not part of a wonderful world?), despite everything, that part can never again be revived. It is dead. Forever.
    ("And all the deadly virtues plague my death.")
    To begin with, I entered SF by probably the worst route possible--Daly City, the inspiration for "Little Boxes" and quite understandable. It was also rush hour but I really can't complain about that, for it was no sweat at all. Really. The greatest rush hour city I'd ever been in. And hardly had I got off the freeway when a pretty girl smiled at grubby me. Because I didn't run her down in an intersection. I trolled up Grant Street through Chinatown and around and finally gave up, took a motel on Lombard Street (there's a great windy, twisty section of Lombard--5 mph. (I took it at 10.) Great. Really.), and came back to the City Lights Bookstore and wandered around North Beach, which has just become another Tourist City. Topless Dancers. The Bit.
    After talking to you on the phone, Eileen, I was going to go to a movie then head back to North Beach (around 12, when the crowds perhaps were beginning to disperse). Since the movie began at 10 and 'twas then 9, I stretched out to relax and never went out again. I didn't sleep, for I was not tired. But I was weary. In my legs. In my eyes. For, believe it or not, I have done much walking since I've been in California. To Tijuana. Around LA. Through Big Sur. And I didn't get up until 10:30 the next morning. After many false starts and lollings back into Morpheus.
    When I finally got up, I left my car to have a grease job and oil change, brakes adjusted, and door fixed (it was having a latching problem), and walked down to Sanchez. Both Pam and Jim suggested I go to Haite-Ashbury, where the new "hip" is (are?). Which I did.
    Walking up and down Haite with guitar and suitcase, a young Negro asked, "Do you give lessons?"
    I laughed and told him I didn't play very well. "I just got into town. Do you know a nice cheap place around here where I could stay?"
    "Why don't you go to the Blue Unicorn or the Psychedelic Shop and ask around? Somebody's bound to put you up. It's a very friendly town. I just got in ten days ago and that's what I did. I still haven't got a place of my own."
    So I hipped-hopped down to the Blue Unicorn where I sat and drank and ate ravioli. Nothing happened. I went up to the Psychedelic Shop. Nothing happened. I went back to the Blue Unicorn and asked the guy behind the counter if he knew where I could stay cheap. Non-commital. ("No place around here")
    So I sat and drank coffee, a bit bitched, and they started out some poetry reading. ("Anyone who's got some poetry they want to read, come sign up with old Sanzenfrantz here." (name fictional)) I listened and said, "Hey, do you mind if I expound a little Dylan Thomas?"
    So I got up on that there stage and said, "First, a commercial. If any of you know where I can sleep cheap tonight, I'd be mightily appreciative." Then I swung into "Lament" and one of my own.
    There was a new guy behind the counter (Herb) (the guy, that is, not the counter) and he said, "Don't worry, we'll find a place for you to stay tonight." They took up a collection for the poets and my share was 25 cents but I turned it back into the general kitty and enjoyed my free coffee.
    There was this Oriental chick sitting next to me and she started up a conversation. "Have you found a place to stay yet?" "No, not yet," I answere half-truthfully. She asked a lot of questions, such as, "Are you a thief?" ("You can steal anything you want from me but just don't take anything from my roommates.")
    She was, of course, Irene Kitagawa, from Hawaii. She had two roommates, Phil and Mike, each with a separate room and everything up-and-up (I guess) (but I'm not really sure). (Phil's name really begins with an F but I don't know what it really is or where he's from.) Irene is working as a nurse and going to school and we had a long talk. (You can guess who did most of the talking.) She offered me some pot but again I never quite got around to it. ("You don't really need it," she told me.) She's not a beatnik and that was the first time she had been to the Blue Unicorn. Anyway I spent a fitful night on her couch and, while we were having breakfast together, a friendly mailman walked in and--zap! more discussion. He didn't think the Civil Rights Act (the one about desegregating department stores) was constitutional and I have to agree with him. And this from a Texas Negro! Unfortunately, all we wound up doing was reinforcing each other's views on Civil Rights. ("You can't stand still but, damn it, some of the tactics smell of totalitarianism and the kind of bigotry we're trying to outlaw.") (That doesn't really sound like what I (or John, I guess, too) believe.)
    Anyway in come Mike (Makoto), who had been out all night and going for 36 hours, and happy and high as a cloud, and all the serious went out the window, even though John was afraid all the Reagan-ites were taking over the country. John returned to work, Mike and I discussed--well, I'm not sure what, but I guess you could say the Philosophy of Existence, and I drove Irene to work, after promising to write (which I will do).
    Irene suggested I go out to Muir Wood, which I did, over the Golden Gate Bridge (which I do not find impressive) and through Sausalito (which is, like North Beach, "artsy-craftsy," to use Irene's expresson. But, really, I must reserve judgment . . . especially when Sausalito is concedrned. It looks interesting.)
    Muir Wood is described elsewhere on these collected pieces of paper and I cannot add. I cannot really describe but only try to collect the thoughts and remnants of thoughts now left. Let me merely add that I wandered through that pine forest like a child . . . not in awe or reverence but just walking, whistling mentally, almost devoid of a sense of time, brim full of a kind of happiness (what is the word? It's not happiness or ecstasy, just a mindless sort of BLISS (that is the word)). I have not known such an unbursting kind of happiness in a long time. Do you know what I mean?
    My recent happinesses have been the bursting, almost painful kind. This was peaceful, calm, timeless. I walked steadily but slowly, sauntering perhaps is the word, strolling just putting one foot in front of the other, looking around slowly and, well, hell, the only way I can put it is "mentally whistling." I did very little thinking and surely no deep thinking. I felt very much like a child again. But no awe. (Could it have been the size of those trees, however, that made me feel like a child again?)
    Coming out of the valley where Muir Woods is located, up a twisting road, looking back into the dusky haze, I almost brought "Something Furtive in the Night" to the realm of truth and prophecy.

Muir Woods, 4:45 pm, Nov. 10 (?)
    I didn't think I would write any more "on-location" descriptions but how can I resist? It is so peaceful here. Not quiet. Peaceful. Bird sounds all around--chirps, someone ruffling his feathers. Water sounds. At first I was not impressed with these trees (redwoods) but now their smell is part of my body. They rise up from the surrounding scrub like lords, yet they are only part of the silence, only a part of the world.
    Hello, redwoods. (Teach me to say hello, Eileen. We (We? I) are really making too much of this whole thing--of the differences, of the terms. There is no you, no I, no redwood, no stream . . . just us.)) (People talk so quietly, in hushed tones, here.)
Chula Vista, 11:10 p.m., Nov. 13
    Back to Tijuana.
    (Actually much of the above was written here but to keep the continuity, I let the dateline pass.)
    Anyway, from Muir on, it was essentially downhill. I slept in a motel, spent time in the Blue Unicorn to no avail (except that I like the place and it's fine for writing letters). I got up early to call the office and tell them to send my check to Dean, only to remember that Friday was a holiday. Before I left Frisco, I had to have my car worked on again--electrical problems (fuel gauge, among others, wouldn't register) and choke problems. I came back to LA via the inland route (I didn't dare go back by Sur) only to have starter problems crop up again. Since Dean was working late, I sacked out in a motel.
    Saturday, after getting a new starter, I bombed over to Dean's. We went out wine sampling then went slot-car racing with John Price. There was a riot in Hollywood (1500 teenagers "took over" Sunset Strip) and, as we headed home, John said in his hoarse nasal voice, "8 years ago we'd be over at the Strip."
    "Why aren't we?" I asked.
    "Don't ask me. Dean's driving."
    (We didn't go.)
    Today I left with the intention of heading East but said why? So down to Tijuana.
    So let's close it all up until I see you again. Yes, I left San Francisco far too soon. But no matter when I left, it would have been far too soon. There are many things I didn't see or do, many places I didn't go to, many people I didn't meet. I didn't go back to the City Lights Bookstore or your bakery, Eileen; I didn't really see Chinatown; I didn't go to Telegraph Hill or the Golden Gate Park. I still don't understand what all the fuss is about. I don't love San Francisco. Not yet. But I could. Very easily. This I know. I suppose I don't because I'm stubborn, an "individual," a "non-conformist" who refuses to do what everyone else does. And I didn't dare love Frisco, for my time was so limited. But part of it is real--that San Francisco is not such a fabulous city. At least, not for me.
    There are many things unsaid. When I came across the desert, I tried redlining (which is not related to mainlining). I chickened out at 100.
    On the way to Frisco I passed Freedom. On the way back south, I passed Paradise Overflow.
    I didn't get pot nor LSD (both of which I could have got for free).
    In an hour or so, I will pick up some more pills for this damn infection. Not that they've done any good. Dean gave me some penicillin pills and they seem to be working great. But there's not enough.
    And so into the day and back East.
    O yes, I wonder about Irene. I didn't try to make her but there were times when I wondered whether or not I could. (She told me Fillmore Street is where the hustlers hang out and said a guy once told her, "I could make you the best-paid hustler in San Francisco." ?)

Santa Fe Fire Road (Calif.), 12:30, Nov. 14
    A solid bank of clouds soars ove the mountains to the north, which are lightly sifted with snow. So tall, so inviting. Sue, I wish I had brought you along so you could see this. Is there no end to beauty?
Calico, California, 2:00
    Interesting. The population in 1957 was 27.
    The last time I was here was the morning (and early morning it was) of April 22, 1957. I had met Shan on the 17th and, when Dean showed up at the campus Sunday evening (he was at this point living off-campus preparatory to flunking out), I asked him to go for a ride. He realized something was up for, when John Price came up and asked the same thing, he gently put him off.
    I told Dean about Shan and asked him if he thought I loved her. He said, "You're just impetuous enough to be." And that was that. We drove out across the mountains and the desert in silence. At one point, after 15-20 minutes of silence, we both started to say the same thing. We got out to Calico and got lost in the moonlit morning in some canyons and gulches on a dirt road. It looked like the Badlands. We must have driven around for about an hour before we found our way out. I hope to find them myself.
    Anyway, Calico was the farthest east I'd been from the West Coast. But all such statements are shattered and meaningless now, of course.
    (You should see the "music boxes" here, Eileen.)
THE CANYON
    A little chipmunk scurries across the rocks. I explore (but not deeply) mines carved into the rock. I cannot say it is as pretty now in the daylight (pretty? terrifying is a better word) than it was 9 years ago in the wee smalls, but it is something to see.     Rocks of light tan. Rocks of rust red. Of ochre. And a rust brown growth on the slopes. And silence. Complete utter silence. Not a plane. Not a car. The mines beckon to me.
Seligman, Arizona, 11 PM
    This is it, kids. There will be no more letters. You will hear nothing from me again until my ghost walks in the door.
    When you get away from the hills (but not too far), there are other colors--a delicate green, a pale yellow, and a gentle violet.
    The desert is alive at night. I saw three jackrabbits (with their floppy ears and unrabbitlike gait), a field mouse (skittering across the road), and numerous birds (presumably owls) outside Goffs, Calif., and maybe a bobcat (probably a tomcat) in Nevada. (You mean a dylancat or a rushcat?)
    I really screwed up my travel speed today. I covered only over 500 miles in 11 hours, even including the one-to-two hours lost in Calico.
    Tomorrow the Grand Canyon. I think I'll send a postcard to Mike and Irene. ("All right, so it's only a game. But what a ballpark!") Mike has got me interested in Oriental religion, about which the only thing I know comes second or third hand. My ideas, my "Philosophy of Existence," comes almost entirely from Western religions and modes of thought. I've got to broaden my base. (Stop snickering.)
    So when will I be back? I don't know.

    Santa Fe maybe tomorrow. And the grave of Oliver LaFarge.
    Pax
    Hello
    Grant
Grand Canyon, Nov. 15, 9 am

    On the highway: a rabbit flipped over on his sad rabbit back by a passing auto, his thumper feet in final rest.

    What can a man say to this? To think that I almost passed it by. A helicopter is almost lost in the canyon and gives the only perspective. This is awesome. I only wish I could afford a helicopter trip.

    Great fingers of darkness stretch out across the canyons in this early hour as buttes cast their shadows. On the opposite are layers of pale yellow-tan, then layers of rust-red, then pale dusty slopes. A trail stretches out across one of the buttes in a nearly straight line and a cliff far below is a pale rust. What must it have been like to be one of the first men to view this awesome sight?
    In less than half a minute I added 3 new birds to my ken. But I don't know what they are! One was blue, like a lazuli bunting, one gray with a crest, and one a woodpecker.
    (And a flock of wild turkey on the road.) (Didn't know they had them in Arizona.)

    And a snow-sloped mountain rising out of the southern desert like a Japanese painting.

    The Navajo reservation has pink deserts. It has many-hued hills, like a Navajo blanket, sharply delineated from each other--orange, yellow, pink, russet, steel gray. It has cliffs with two thin parallel lines of magenta. It is very beautiful. But it is also inedible.

Journal 10/22/66-11/17/66
    Washington to Knoxville to Chattanooga to Birmingham. The crazy quilt pattern of autumn trees on the mountains. Wraithlike mountains (blue, yes, blue) in the distance slowly becoming solid. A hillside of horses. The ridges and strata of our Mother Earth where man has torn away at her skin, leaving scars of highway and turnpike. Ragged mountains with their tops chewed off. An island or a shore terraced where a lake had receded. Crows feeding on the highway carrion. A black horse and a black bull together, so alike in their dissimilarity. The ramshackle Tennessee hillside houses. I travelled 750 miles in 16 hours, having breakfast in Greenville (Va.), lunch outside Bristol (Tenn.), and supper in Chattanooga, spending the night in Birmingham (Ala.) I saw 3 new states: Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama. I wanted to follow many of the tantalizing country roads and had to forego a visit to the Hungry Mother State Park in Marion, Va.
    Birmingham to Meridien to Jackson to Vicksburg to Shreveport to Tyler, Texas. 590 miles in 12 1/2 hours; breakfast in Tuscaloosa (Ala), lunch in Delhi (La), supper in Tyler. 3 more new states: Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. I've got starter problems. I had to get a push in Birmingham. No more trouble until I arrived in Tyler--but I've got a downgrade to start me here.
    Dallas. I rolled in by 11:30, left my car at the local Sunbeam dealer, and had a talk with a local doc. I got a shot of penicillin and a prescription for some sulfa drugs. That's about it so far. I've seen Bob Gordon, Bob Gibbs, Francis Gray, and Nick DiCianni so far.
    Not much. Had a buffalo steak downstairs at Univac expense. Tough and greasy. I was able to put my car repair bill on my Shell credit card.
    Out on the town with Univac. A fine steak dinner at the Cattlemen's with fine-looking waitresses and hostesses with guns, jeans, and cowboy hats. Then to the Firehouse to drink, where the girls walked around in babydoll-type outfits and hustled the drinks along, but not too bad or too fast. Very friendly . . . to a point.
    This evening I ate at the Cattlemen's again with Francis Gray and two others. In the evening, Bob Gordon, Jesse Maury, Dennis, Don Arthur, and I went again to the Firehouse, and then to the Cinders, a similar establishment but with better-looking girls. Nothing else to say except that I got high.
    I finally cut out of Dallas and made it to Midlands, Texas, in 6 1/2 hours (2:45 to 9:15 pm), a grand total of 339 miles. I ate supper in Abilene. This central Texas plains has a stark and terrifying beauty. It is impossible to describe although I've seen it in dozens of Westerns. But when you're smack in the middle of it, it grabs hold of you with a terrifying grip. It's big and it requires a big man. I have fallen in love with it and I shall come back some day.
    From Midland to Gila Bend, Arizona, 751 miles in 13 1/2 hours. Breakfast in Van Horn, lunch in Las Cruces, N.M., and supper (a damn good Mexican meal) in Gila Bend. I wanted to go on to Yuma but, when I stopped for supper and my head started to spin, I knew that was it. More beauty. I put it all in a letter to Sue and Eileen. I called Eileen from Benson, Ariz., and found out that Sue is not pregnant, that she's going to stay in Washington and live with Eileen.
    2838 miles from Washington DC to San Diego (or rather, San Ysleta). I ate breakfast in Yuma and, having plenty of time, I detoured thru Mexico. It damn near killed me. I got lost in Mexicali and had to follow a bus onto that hot desert. The temp gauge ran to 200 as we hit the mountains, more desert, good mountains, and the temp slowly came down. At Tijuana, I got lost again, made it to the border, and stopped within walking distance. I drove to the meeting hotel and back, walked over to the Mexican side, bought a beer, watched a poor strip show, and back.
    First day of the UAIDE meeting. I made another doctor appointment. The trip to Tijuana tonight was better. I found a joint where the broads came hustling their tails and the girls took off their pants. I lost nothing by $1.60 on beer.
    Not much. I went to see another doctor, who took a smear, gave me a shot that damn near tore my hip off, and some more pills. I went over to the Manhattan Club in Tijuana again tonight. I found out how much they cost. I didn't have enough with me.
    Fog has set in. I don't think I'll go to Tijuana.
    I've been screwed! (No, I didn't go to Tijuana.) Went back for the results of my medical tests today--it cost me almost $50! I have a "non-specific" infection. It still itches! Anyway, the conference is over. I bombed over to LA, walked around the center a bit, then up to Deano's. We drank, drove, Velinty came over (he's a Zen Buddhist now), and finally I sacked out on Dean's guest room bed.
    Got up at 9:30, went out and found a motel in North Hollywood, then met Deano for luch at a Chinese place in Santa Monica. Over to the Caltech campus for a walk around, a drive up to Mt. Wilson, then back to Deano's for some slot-car racing and TV.
    I got up around ten and went shopping for an extra suitcase, which I finally got in downtown LA for $2.50 near Pershing Squzare. I tried to phone Tenaya but her number had been disconnected, so I drove down to Venice. Nothing there. I walked down Hollywood Boulevard to Hollywood and Vine and beyond. Then over to Dean's again for another quiet evening.
    This evening, when I went over for Dinner, Kenny and Toots Anschultz were visiting. It has started to rain.
    It's pouring. Snow in the mountains up north. I left the motel at 8:15, had steak-&-eggs in Hollywood, and rolled out to the Coast via Sunset Boulevard. It was raining and the rainstorm had kicked up some fine breakers. It was fine country, but not awe-inspiring till I hit the Big Sur coast. Mountains running into the sea. Surf two of three times your height, crashing into the jagged rocks. And the clouds (the rain had stopped by now) only added to the complete effect. I rolled into Big Sur at 5:45 after 344 miles of travel (including about 5 miles that I had to retrace).
    SF I found to be a depressing city. I reluctantly rolled up the coast, stopped in Pt Lobos State Park and on a beach in Carmel (where the waves rolled over my ankles while I wasn't looking). I approached SF thru Daly City (Malvina Reynolds' "Little Boxes" city) and came in at rush hour, but it wasn't bad at all. Then up Grant Street, through Chinatown, looking for a garage and a motel. I finally went across town and back. When I called Eileen, she chewed me out.
    I sacked out at 9 last night and didn't get up until 10:30. After having my car greased and oiled at a Shell station, I found a Sunbeam dealer to work on the door and walked down to see Jim and Pam alvey, Eileen's friends. I called Eileen and Sue and Eileen talked to Pam and Jim. Sue told me Will Schultz had called; he's living in Washington now. Pam and Jim suggested I try the Haite-Ashbury areea and, at the Blue Unicorn coffee house, I recited some poetry and stated I was looking for a place to stay. A Hawaiian girl, Irene, took me home and I sacked out on her couch after a long and interesting discussion.
    Irene lives with two other Orientals (men), each in their separate rooms. A Negro mailman came in while we were eating breakfast and we had another good discussion which was furthered when Makoto (Mike) Shiota came in. This went into Zen Buddhism and Oriental philosophy. I drove Irene to work, drove out to Sausalito and Muir Wood (redwood), then back to the Blue Unicorn, where I spent the evening. I spent the night in a motel.
    More car trouble--choke and electrical bothers. I left SF around 9:30, after the car was fixed, and took the inland route to LA. There I had starter troubles so I stopped in a Hollywood motel when I found Dean was working late.
    After getting a new starter and 2 new tires, I went over to Dean's. We went slot-car racing with John Price.
    I was going to head east today but changed my mind and came down to Chula Vista and Tijuana. Dean gave me some penicillin pills and they seem to work fairly well.
    517 miles in 11 hours 5 minutes, including a stopover in Calico. I crossed 374 miles of California in 8 hours 5 minutes, and 21 miles of Nevada in 20 minutes. Breakfast in Chula Vista, lunch alongside the road outside Cajon Junction, and supper in Kingman, Ariz. From Chula Vista to Seligman, Arizona.
    629 miles in 14 hours, despite a "wasted" two hours in Grand Canyon (would that it had been 2 years). Breakfast in Seligman, a moving lunch on the Navajo reservation (travelling lunch, that is), and supper (Mexican) in Albuquerque. Total crossing time for Arizona: 469 miles in 10 hours 20 minutes. I left Seligman at 7:15 and went up to the Canyon. I have described it in my "on-location" notes. Let me just further add that it is massive and immense. I made many stops at the overlooks. The Navajo reservation is a study of interest: whole familes hitchhiking, hogans alongside houses (presumably for the older people?), the Navajo language not lost but spoken among themselves, Ganado not very pretty with a ravine having two rusted and abandoned cars. I had planned to go to Oliver LaFarge's grave in Santa Fe but it would have been 8:00 when I go there so I forged on instead. I just may make it to Washington by Friday.
    From Seligman, NM, to Vinita, Okla--602 miles in 11 hours 35 minutes. Breakfast while travelling Tucumcari, NM, lunch travelling thru Clinton, Okla, and supper east of Tulsa. In all, I spent 8 hours 5 minutes travelling thru 384 miles of New Mexico and 3 hours driving thru 180 miles of the Texas panhandle. I can't say that eastern New Mexico, the Texas panhandle, or Oklahoma are very pretty--mostly flat and deadly. I lost about 2 hours sleeping, not getting on the road until 9 a.m. CST. The only thing of note--the trunk lid keeps popping open. I've wired it down.
    From Vinita, Okla, to Richmond, Ind--701 miles in 12 hours. Breakfast in Joplin, Mo; Lunch near Washington, Mo; supper in Indianapolis. Crossing times: Oklahoma--374 miles in 7 hours 45 min; Kansas--9 miles in 10 minutes; Missouri--318 miles in 6 hours 5 min; Illinois--157 miles in 2 hours 35 min. Some thoughts: I suppose it's fitting that Grant is in Richmond. The trip was more bearable today as I went thru rolling country, especially in the foothills of the Ozarks, and over the Mississippi. On a sign in Greenfield, In: "Slow Down and Smile. You are on Radar." And Nameless Creek. Tomorrow at this time it'll all be over--one way or another.
    Zapped into the apt. at 8:30 to surprise Sue and Eileen.

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