66 Follow that truck

I can tell you where I went next. I can tell you some of the things that happened. But I can't always tell you exactly where I was when something happened. The next leg of the trip is really a blur. Honestly, it's pretty amazing that we survived.

We found trees to sleep behind near the Great Salt Lake. Kind of chilly under that open sky without all that pavement like in the eastern cities. Stars. 

Walked. Long walks. Diner. Plenty of coffee. Milk. Washed up a little. Got plenty of stares.

Thumb out. Truck pulls over. We were heading south. If we had known. If we had a map we would have jumped out at Interstate 70 and just headed west. Maybe. But we didn't care. We were seeing things we had never seen before. We'll get there.

I don't have much of a recollection of where we were let off. I'm thinking it was near Green River. The driver left us at Highway 191. He probably thought we'd get on I-70 and make that turn. But we didn't. We ended up on Highway 191 headed further south. I don't think we got anything to drink. Maybe we used the bathroom at a gas station and drank water out of the sink. Hydration was not a term anyone used back then.

Ok. A trucker pulled over. We were ready to jump in the front. But he told us the back was empty. We could stretch out. It was cool. This was before every deadly homicide show was on TV. Ok. Ok man. Sounds good. Thanks.

Get in there. He closes the doors. Pitch black. Strange. Strange. Ok. We're going. We couldn't see the road. We didn't see that it was a bit of a back track east to keep going south on 191. Maybe then we would have said "Thanks never mind. We'll get out here." But we were in the dark. We were cool with it for a while but then we started thinking and talking. "Hey. Is this weird? Is this guy weird? How much oxygen is in here?" We were really wondering. It's all cute nostalgia now, but there were a lot of people back then that didn't like the hippie type. In the big cities too. Have you seen Joe (1970), Peter Boyle?

The guy near Salt Lake in the 40's car warned us. This is the first time on the trip I really started to get nervous. We started banging on the front. I don't know when he started to hear us. We kept banging louder. Then started yelling "Let us out of here!" He kept driving. You might be thinking, oh they're just freaking out. But I began to sense real danger. And stuff happened. I couldn't do it now, but I used to practice blood curdling screams at the top of my lungs. For fun. Scare people in cemeteries and such. I let loose with some of the bloodiest screams you've ever heard. We didn't stop banging. He finally pulled over.

"Let us out of here." He did. There we were. Walking along 191 South in Utah. We were ok.

 Heat. Dry. Walking. Just keep walking.

Thinking it was past Blanding that we got out because we never did get to see any mountains around there. Oh boy, not many cars driving these roads in 1972. Looks like some kind of stop up ahead. 

I remember the red dirt. Red dirt? Dry. Red rocks around. A little restaurant. White against the red dirt. Plenty of people parked. There was probably a gas station too, but since we weren't going to use one, I don't remember. Sign on the front door. "No hippies. No back packs. No bare feet." Oh. What are we going to do? LBJ said, like usual "Fuck it." We left our little bags and sleeping bags behind some kind of bush or tree. In we go.

Regular old diner. Pretty full. I remember imprints on my brain of patrons. Not the same kind of truckers we were getting rides from. Harsher. Little did they know... we weren't weakling hippies. We were New York hippies. Not that we could do anything, but we sure as hell knew when to run.

I'll never forget this. The waitress took our little order. I always got a big glass of milk. Bone power. She had that Flo from Mel's Diner hairdo. I loved Flo from Mel's Diner but I didn't know that then because that was later on. She would have been nice. But this waitress was a mean one. Bad. She put that milk down in front of me. Looked me right in the eyes and knocked that big glass of milk all over me. Every damn drop. And then she kept looking at me.

I'm not completely crazy but I stood right up and yelled something at her. The whole god damn place stopped and looked. LBJ couldn't believe it either. He said "Cool it. Let's just go." That red plastic cup made it onto the floor too.

Oh. They hate us. We better go. It's not like we have a car to make an escape in. I didn't put my head down when I walked out and I sure as hell didn't pay for the milk either. Now I was going out into the hot sun with wet milk all over me. Oh my God. I was salty from the lake and sour from the milk.