by sam paul
When we reached the end of the dock there was a path on solid ground leading away in to the forest. Then the most amazing thing happened. We had walked less than a quarter mile and suddenly all the tourists and throngs of people were just…gone. There was nobody around but us. I learned and discovered that most people who visit YNP don’t venture past the roadside attractions to see where the beauty really lives. A lot of things in life are set up to be shallow like that. Seems I had no right to be angry with the tourists after all—they stay where they are designed to stay—preserving the soul of the land. The map says there are five main areas of attraction, by emphasizing and exposing certain places in the park the rest of it can be preserved. What a beautiful fucking paradigm. Cutting off the foot to save the body.
Ansel Adams got rich capturing the raw spiritual energy of places like this. He was paid well by people who never knew they were hypocrites working toward destruction while hanging their black and white scenery in office buildings in a desperate subconscious last line of spiritual self-defense. He captured spectacular images that need no gimmicks or enhancements to be appreciated.
There was a forest fire here about 4 years ago, I remember seeing it burn on the news and hearing about how it was a tragedy, blah blah blah. Most people don’t know that deep forest needs to burn every so often to get rid of the excess dead wood, open the pine cone seeds and let the ecosystem experience a rebirth. The trail we were on led straight through a vast area of trees that now only resemble charred matchsticks poking out of the ground. The area we went though was severely burned and seemed to encompass everything as far as we could see, yet I knew I was only seeing a small fraction of the overall damage. Having the dead birch trees all around us was very surreal and spooky, so we stopped for a minute to smoke a bowl. I noticed then that the floor of the forest was a canvas of new plush green grass and flowers. The contrasts were so interesting that I took a lot of pictures here, including one with John B. and I pretending to eat a HUGE mushroom we found growing out of a burnt stump near where we were resting.
After the trail brought us out of the burnt trees we hiked through an endless area of old growth which seemed all the more beautiful because of the devastation we left behind. I don’t think I can describe to someone who has never seen anything like this, how overwhelming it all is. I got the impression we could walk for years and never find anybody else. It gave me a twinge of a notion about how desperate or hardcore the early pioneers and explorers must have been to try and conquer a whole continent of this land. At one point we were walking by a pond and there was a huge moose standing there nonchalantly, just watching us hike by. It was straight out of National fucking Geographic. In my mind when I think moose I think Bullwinkle or a large cow creature, but this was a giant beast so large it had limbs from trees taking up residence and growing moss in its antlers. Awesome.
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/N
orthern 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.
The parking lot becomes almost a whole new world at night and most of the random hippies seem to have a glow about them now. Some of the gaily-decorated school busses/homes conceal bands that play a variety of musical styles ALL night long. Aspiring rock legends I suppose. I have to add that not all of them are any good, even on good acid.
I’ve mostly just been walking around with a stupid grin on my face that says “hey, I’m on strong drugs” but nobody’s paid any attention to me. Jenifer went off to do her own thing but she’s tripping too, along with everybody else I met today or brought along on this journey.
I think it’s important I give Jenifer her space right now; some sort of primordial mating knowledge is kicking in my brain. If that sounds like rubbery gibberish (ribberish) just blame the residuals.
I eventually found a bus cranking out techno music with a mini-rave going on all around it. There were even authentic little munchkin rave kids everywhere. They must sleep all day because I didn’t remember seeing any of them earlier or they could have all been entirely fictitious. I thumped and danced with the best of them for a while, getting nice and sweaty, until the strobe light started fucking with me too hard. The lady in the bus next to our van shut up about the loud music, waking her kids. I’m going to try and sleep for a few hours, tomorrow is a big day and I should conserve a little strength.
I finally made myself sleep a little last night, I sure didn’t want to but now I’m glad I did because I woke up at dawn to a beautiful sunrise coming up over the forest of green. I slept outside in my sleeping bag under a tarp to keep the dew off. The first thing I did after I pulled on some shoes and grabbed another flannel from the van, was walk down to Shakedown St. and buy some great big muffins and milk for breakfast. I have to say plain banana and blueberry muffins are some of the best tasting food one will ever eat. In fact, I was so impressed I even bought a muffin and brought it back for Jenifer, but I doubt she ate it. She’s one of the most anti-social bad morning people I’ve ever met and for some peculiar reason it’s not a turn off. I find the fact that she doesn’t give a damn in the morning’s kind of cool, plus she’s really attractive with a slight pout-y spoiled girl scowl. I hope she never comes across this because I don’t think she would appreciate me thinking her bad moods were sexy. Sometimes when I look at Jenifer I envision her as a dignified noble woman straight out of some lost ancient time—strong and determined, yet also beautiful and delicate in a land of savages.
I dropped a couple of hits of acid with my morning muffins, so I was tripping full blast by the time the show started in the mid afternoon. I found a seat on the floor with my friends and sat out in the sunshine listening to music. I watched the Indigo Girls open up the afternoon, which was cool. I’ve never been into their music very much, but today it was absolutely awesome. Their melodic harmonies and the familiarity of some of their songs was reassuring while tripping and being in the fellowship of an entire stadium filled with good vibes. People wanting to be happy is addictive.
The Grateful Dead have a lot of good people open for them; last year in Vegas they played with Sting, which may have been another influence in me wanting to get here so badly.
The stage was pretty much set up like any other any other stadium concert I’ve been to except there were giant tye-dye flags waving everywhere. I timed my acid so that I was in another world by the time the show started, but I got really nervous during the break between the Indigo Girls and the Dead because this strange cynical clown walked up to us and started performing magic tricks. Now there was no way for him not to notice that everyone in my immediate vicinity had huge eyes and idiotic grins on our faces, plus he kept saying how he performed for free and didn’t want any money which I know is usually what people say right before they ask for money in some fashion or another. I’ve never liked clowns to begin with and this guy started creeping me out like the clown from “It.” He was being really sarcastic while he was doing these dumb slight of hand tricks and I started thinking he was distracting us while the undercover cops were on their way to arrest us. I looked around and thought I saw a guy in the rafters above the stage with binoculars and I got extremely paranoid. I was tripping really hard by this point in case I forgot to mention that. He finally did get around to bumming some money and left us in peace, which made me a hell of a lot happier.
When the Grateful Dead finally came out to play after the tense session with the clown and many minutes of anticipation I was prepared for anything. I had been listening to non-stop Dead music for the past week (except for small gangster rap breaks) so I was prepared for the laid back country sound they began to play. Truthfully, I believed a lot of the hype that surrounds them and I was expecting to see some maniacal frenzied energy that only a band synonymous with helping pioneer my generation’s counter-culture could produce. I was surprised though. They came out and just began to weave a musical tapestry as if they were already in the middle of playing and giving words to everything around us. I began to see that underneath the bright colors and weariness that goes with this hard life on the road there is a true happiness. These old men who look as if they’ve been on the road wayyyy too long attract these people to them because they love what they are doing. That’s why they encourage people to tape the shows, not because they need to force their music on somebody else, not because they need to continually increase their popularity, it’s because the material aspect just doesn’t matter. It’s a way of showing the audience respect by conveying “we’re sorry we have to sell tickets to see us, but you don’t have to buy our albums and we won’t sell you any high priced t-shirt souvenirs that insult your intelligence, just have a good time and take that with you.” A hidden lesson that mayb
e the music of life isn’t theirs to package and sell? I don’t know. I see that there are a lot of problems with having a hedonistic lifestyle like this, too many drugs and corruption confuses the message, but sometimes I wouldn’t ever take it to the point where I join the dancing cult devoted to the Grateful Dead’s music. I saw some people today who twirl continuously, around and round, through every show the Dead play, living from message to message in a bizarre hippy aerobic cult.
I just wanted to put down that I got the impression there are a lot of things we miss by not being open to accepting what isn’t necessarily taught. This life is good so celebrate the good vibe all around. Of course the music was flawless but I enjoyed stumbling upon this new philosophy most of all. It’s given me a lot to mull over and think about, especially as it pertains to everything I thought I valued the most. I can sense that seeds have been planted in my mind that may change the course of my life forever. I’m going to go see if I can find Jenifer and frolic.
“And who will save your soul?”
—Jewel
Given the chance to relive any mortal moment again like in the play “Our Town”, I know that today would be one of the days I would choose. I know for a fact now that I have never loved a woman as much as I love Jenifer Lansing and I know now it’s an indisputable fact that she loves me equally as much. Jenifer Lansing loves me and I pledge before my God and any and all other minor deities who happen to hear my thoughts and prayers in passing that she will be given all the consideration and devotion as befits my wife.