A Medicine Man talks about new levels of conciousness
An early start didn’t get me moving very quickly. It was a native man of 70 years who picked me up after a half hour or so. He seemed to be fighting fit, but apparently had all sorts of conditions from cancers to emphizema, and as a result he smoked marijuana medicinally. By this stage it was par for the course when he shared his medicine as we drove along that winding road, following the cliffs, stopping to look at waterfalls and the like. I only got scared once when we seemed to slip a little on a particularly sharp bend. He dropped me at the next hotel/restaurant along and bought me a delicious breakfast. ‘How funny’ he said, ‘that an old man picks you up, buys you breakfast and then drives off with only a “happy trails.”’ How funny indeed, and how nice. Thankyou, and happy trails to you sir.
*****The Bender ends******
Walking the Dog
I was relaxing and enjoying the sunshine, not in a hurry after the spiritual guidance of my last ride, when I met a man taking his dog for a walk. He’d started the walk 30 days previously in San Francisco. We chatted away and it turned out that he, despite appearances, was a man of some means, who simply liked to live a simple life. I really admired the guy. His dog had hurt a paw, so now he was going to hitch a ride to get some treatment. We were going opposite directions for a while, before he decided that South wasn’t the way he wanted to go. He joined me in my spot looking for a ride North.
No point Russian
We waited a long time on that very quiet highway. Then a middle-aged couple with thick accents stopped for a look at the view. As they were getting back in the car, I negociated a trip down the road with them. Unfortunately, they didn’t have room for my friend and his dog, so I said my goodbyes to them.
They were a couple of Russians who’d emigrated to the USA at the end of the cold war. They lived on the East Coast and were on a little Californian getaway. They wanted to keep stopping and looking at things, which is pretty much the reason I was there too, so we were temporary travel pals. They were lovely people, perhaps slightly confused by my vagrant lifestyle, I mean, don’t I have a job, or actually do something? One day, one day…
Pays to sleep
Suddenly we were off the quietest highway in the world, and there was traffic everywhere. I got dropped off in Monterey. I strolled down to a busy onramp, stuck my thumb out, not sure where I was going, maybe Santa Cruz. As I stood there, as dusk fell, an overwhelming weariness took over my body. Unthinnkingly I walked back to some motels I’d seen, I used a credit card, actually paid for a bed, turned on the TV, and the next thing I knew it was morning.
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