55 Cause it's a long long way to paradise

There's a highway that heads straight on in to Detroit and that's what we took. We weren't driving, not sure the name or number. We got picked up by a brother and sister heading back on into the states. I didn't write anything down. Wasn't sure what the future was. I'm going to say over and over again what kinds of great awesome people that we met. All kinds. LBJ & I were told over and over, people wishing they were us. Wishing that they would just head on out.

These two were farm kids. Wanting to hear a few stories but we really wanted to hear their stories too. I tried to let them know how much I would have liked living on the farm. Long Island hippies wanting to escape.

It was a pretty long ride. Four hours from Toronto. We had to go through a tunnel from Windsor, Canada. But this time we weren't so lucky crossing the border. So nice and they got screwed over because we were in the car with them. Out to help.

It goes without saying that LBJ had long hair. Fluffy too, so it would bounce and fly in the breeze. That freak flag. And my clothes. Customs asks the brother and sister. OK. "Are they with you?" "We picked them up hitchhiking." "I'm going to need you to pull the car over there." We pulled the car over and they took the keys. We all had to go inside.

Those poor kids. The sister was kind of upset. I apologized to them. They weren't upset with us but they were flabbergasted by what was going on. So they pulled us inside and luckily we still had ID. Just paper birth certificates, but life was so much easier before the "information age" hit. I swear we would have been a kinder humanity if we hadn't taken a bite of that apple.

They stuck us in a room looking out on an automobile garage of sorts. We sat there for three hours. They took every part of that car apart. All the panels. Everything. They took the tires off and checked inside them. I remember the sister crying "What are they doing to my car?' I guess we fit the "MO" for the French Connection? Also, is the car ever the same again?

I don't remember the customs people being very friendly at all. After they were done with car they said we could go. We didn't have any drugs on us. Even we weren't that stupid. LBJ & I were "producing" bricks the whole time cause we weren't sure what else was going on. 

We just got the hell out of there. We were starving and so were they. The peanut butter, jelly and white bread was intact from the search. We shared and didn't stop. That's right. We didn't have water bottles with us. We were able to have a cup of water from one of those water cooler things in the station.

Drove straight through Detroit. Not one inkling to stop. Looking out the window at the highways and buildings. Pavement eternal. Those two took good care of us and Godspeed to them.

We were headed to Toledo and then we were splitting up. What a day. They were heading east and we were heading west.