Great stories in here and Dan, amazing…
Here is one of my most memorable
Prologue-Late start tripping with the bad kids in the Beehive state
So although I have been on a number of Psychedelic journeys over time, I didn’t start until college. I drank and got high in HS but I was a wrestler and I had read somewhere, and my tripper friends had backed up likely erroneously, that LSD stores itself in your fat and when you lose weight, you get flashbacks. Now I cut weight every year after football before/during wrestling and the last thing I wanted was a flashback in a sweaty wrestling room with a dude across form me looking to throw/twist/wreck me.
This wasn’t for lack of opportunity. Most of the SLC public school kids thought that all the Catholic School kids were on drugs, and they weren’t far off…
Summer after freshman year of college that all changed. I had tried acid & boomers a few times in college, but the summer after was next level. When you are 19 in Utah in the early 90s acid is cheaper and more readily available than real beer. Blotter hits were $3-5 and a 12 pack of 3.2 Keystone Light at the places we cold buy it was $4.29. Bang for buck, acid wins hands down.
That summer my 2 best friends and I would meet at my folks house after work and dinner with family (one was in Bountiful, one in Rose Park so the Avenues was central) combine into one car and head out. I know we didn’t do this every night but looking back it seems like it. We would drop and head out to what ever party was on at someones out of town parents house, outdoor Reggae shows, the golf course, the ampitheater, etc. wherever underage kids we knew could hang out. This was one of the last great SLC summers of the early 90s before Roman and a bunch of kids in this expanded circle started dying. We would stay out most of the night, crash in my parents basement and then head off to whatever mindless manual labor job we had that summer.
Saw a lot of sunrises up the various canyons that summer, Millcreek especially. We called these “birdchirpers, as the birds were chirping as we headed home.
Scene 1 On the Road
So that summer ends and its time to drive back to school. I went to University in Redlands, CA which was about a 10-11 hour drive with quick stops. My buddy from college & HS and I decide to drop acid for the ride as that takes 10-12 hours so should be perfect. Now this friend wasn’t one of the 2 gents above, we had gone to school together and he was definitely at many of those parties I mentioned in the Prologue. I knew he was a Psychedelic traveler as he had told me at lunch during football two a days the day after the Grateful Dead had played Park West when I complained I was dragging from the show that he was still tripping from the night before and was getting tracers on the footballs he was receiving as a kick returner that AM.
We pack our cars (mine Suzuki Samarai, his early 80s Bronco) to the gills with everything to go to college. We decide to take walkie talkies with us so we can communicate. These were real ones that his family used while hunting up at their cabin in WY. Idea was so we could communicate and pull over if needed. Kaya one & Kaya 2 call names. We have grand plans of taking our time, fking around in the desert, getting out in Vegas for a bit, etc.
We put the Red Ant on our tongues & head out mid morning once traffic has resolved ( 1-15 south rush hour sucked balls in the early 90s as well) Southbound & life is good. Music is cranking mood is high. We are chattering away on the walkie talkies in trucker slang we remember from movies. Laughing our asses off, making good time but not speeding ( too much.)
This was a great idea!
Scene 2 DO NOT GET OUT OF THE CAR
Rural Utah is flowing by, roads are clear, life is good.
This is blaring as loud as my cassette player & cheap after market speakers can Handle
https://youtu.be/bHNa_f28Q-s
I put American Prayer in the cassette deck as we left the Avenues and it just keeps repeating. For you younger folks cassette decks would just flip the tape and keep going until you popped it out. This will become important.
Just south of the Fillmore Virgin Beaver area:
Kaya 1: “Kaya 2 how it going!”
Me “great man, how about you ?”
Kaya 1“ feeling great, roads only melting a little heh heh… Lets pullover at the next exit, gas up take a piss, get a drink”
Me: “ 10-4 good buddy, on your tail. Show me the way home hahahaha”
Pull over into a rural Utah filling station, straight out of the movies. Old pumps, small store, bathroom behind it. Turn off Car, unbcuckle, open door and that’s when it hits me that this is a whole different world.
Air is thick, its way too quiet, everything is just a touch off….
um,
Old school service station. Walk inside and give bored rural Utah white dude my CC ask to fill up on 1. Walk back out to my buddies car. He is still sitting in the front seat.
Me ” it’s a lot different when you get out of the car.”
Him “ I know, I had to get back in”
Me ” wanna take a break?”
Him ” no, we need to keep going, we are ok if we stay in the car. But I gotta piss and I need a new tape. I have been listening to this since we left”
Hands me a cassette of Peter Tosh No Nuclear War.
Me “um, OK be right back”
[slowly, deliberately] Go to car, take pump out, screw on gas cap. Head into to station, pay for gas and get key to Mens.
Go back to car, take American Prayer out of deck bring it to buddy and hand it to him
“lets go”
We walk carefully back to the rank bathroom and relieve our selves & wash hands. Thank God the mirror is torn out.
We go back to our respective cars & get back on I -15. [/slowly, deliberately]
Scene 2, you know it doesn’t stop right?
https://youtu.be/BaxEx75_2o4
Back on the road, everything is better. Peter Tosh fills the car, Southern Utah is beautiful and we are headed in the right direction.
Radio chatter is nil.
then
Just before St George ;
Kaya1: “Kaya 2, I need to get some gas.”
Those older Broncos had HUDGE tanks but also got about 10mpg
Me: “10-4, following you”
We pull into a much more modern Top stop or Rainbow and he goes to fill up.
This felt a lot more like tripping in SLC so a bit better?!? I still stay in car. He manages to fill up and walks over to my car and hands me American Prayer,
“ let me have Peter Tosh back “ We sing a brief Vampire chorus and laugh.
I put American Prayer back in the cassette deck.
Now mind you we are teens of the late 80s, we have CASES of tapes. Metal. Hip hop, dead bootlegs, reggae, ALL with us to choose from but these two are all that will be needed.
We head out again as the sun begins to dip in sky.
We laugh about getting through Utah,
I tell him its not over
We laugh.
Scene 3 Star Wars shit..
Back here again…
https://youtu.be/9hfS9Ck8FnA
windows open things are settling and then. Then we hit AZ…
Virgin River Gorge.
Have you driven it?
If you haven’t driven the Virgin Gorge. Its beautiful and sketchy.
Perfect for the end of a TRIP, as in horrible. I am glad we had not talked about it before as we forgot about it...
https://youtu.be/t_VI_j2bKXs[
I loved it, I hated it
I am glad I lived…
It was amazing & stoopid, like the whole adventure.
whew
ok Fucks sake...
I am not driving a Bronco. My little motorcycle engine needs fuel.
Why didn’t I fuel up in greater St George.
?
Don’t get out of the car.
right
Fuck.
Me:” kaya 1 I need petrol…”
Kaya1:” fk Woodsy, seriously….”
“Next exit”
OK.
So we pull into Mesquite Nevada.
Bordertown in Nevada. Horrible.
I fuel up at another modern convenience, EASY.
KINDA
I talk to my buddy again and give him American prayer. He gives me Peter Tosh.
Kaya 1 : "I didn’t think we were gonna make it…”
Me” so I imagine Vegas is out”
Kaya 1: “Woodsy, we are driving to Redlands. We are not stopping again!”
The sun is getting very low on the horizon.