The Musician... see you among the stars

Richie took the back seat out of his Volkswagen and we put the backpacks in as a back seat instead. We made it just right. We sat in the car to check it out and it worked fine. We were ready to take off for a few weeks. We hopped into the car and went to the gas station and filled up the tank at thirty five cents a gallon. Then we proceeded down Interstate 25. We were all quite comfortable and having a good time. We made it to Albuquerque and headed west. We got about 5 miles from Albuquerque and the car conked out. We pulled over to the side of the road and Richie checked the car. He opened the hood in the rear of the car and the oil was gushing out. I waited with Dick while Richie and Jim went to the other side of the highway to hitch a ride back to Albuquerque for some help. About an hour and a half later Richie and Jim showed up with a tow truck. The car towed into a garage that handles Volkswagens. The tow truck driver had told us that the road heading west, about five miles worth, is all uphill, and that it is difficult to see or feel. He said that the grade is very steep because of the altitude and it just kills cars like crazy. I told him that when we pulled over I could see Albuquerque in the distance and that we were above Albuquerque. I told the driver that it didn´t look like a steep road, but that it looked like a highway climbing just a little. The tow truck driver said that I was correct. It doesn´t look steep, but it really is.

We had arrived at the garage and the mechanic examined the car. He said that the engine is shot. He told us we needed a new engine. Richie and we were in complete shock. Richie asked how much for the new engine, and the mechanic told him $900.00. Richie freaked and didn´t know what to do. It was time for all of us to have a conference. I started the discussion by saying that this was the end of the trip. Jim and Dick said to Richie that they were very sorry that this had happened. They hoped that it was not their fault for having too many people in the car. Richie was very silent and I asked what are we going to do now with the car? Do we replace the engine and head back to get some money? Richie said, ˜If we do that, then I have to come back to pick-up the car, and the car is not worth $900.00.´ I paid 300.00 for it. So I asked again, what should we do? Richie walked back to the car
and silently and stared at the car and thought to himself . We took a picture of him doing just that. Then Richie asked the mechanic if he wanted to buy the car, and the mechanic told him that he would give him $100.00. Richie thought for a long while and sold the car to the shop for $100.00. Then we all got together and discussed heading back when Jim Bergstedt said as a positive voice, Let's not make this event get us down. Why don´t we hitchhike the rest of the way! I said, Hitchhike, and how are we going to get back? Jim said that we could do the same and hitchhike back. I told him that it would be a long way to travel both ways. The canyon is still along ways ahead and the trip back would be double that. I asked Richie, Let's make it your choice. You lost your car and we are also responsible for this happening so do you want to end it here or do you want to go on? He said reluctantly that he didn´t care. Then I turn to asked Dick what he wanted to do and Dick said that he was gain for anything we decided. Crazy Jim said, Lets make it a race to the Grand Canyon. Let´s turn it into a fun thing. Come on.. lets have a race. We all started laughing. Jim is a funny pisser. I looked at Richie and Richie looked at Dick and I looked at Dick and Richie looked at Jim, and everyone laughingly said OK. I said, Wait, that´s not cool. How are we going to make it race? Jim says, "Let´s split up in two groups, Richie and Chazz and Dick and I. We careful thought we all agreed. 'What´s the reward for getting their first?´ We all thought for a moment and then Jim said that who ever gets their second must cook dinner for the first. OK, that sounds reasonable. I then asked, So what are the rules of this race? Jim said no rules except that each group can not help the other. We are totally on our own and you guys are on your own until we get there. OK? OK, so we all looked at one another and we shook hands on it. Then Jim and Dick suddenly split off together and made way across the street and began putting their thumbs out while Richie and I watched confused as what to do and it caught us unprepared. I told Richie lets go over there. as I pointed im a direction in front of them a few yards and we headed to that spot and put our thumbs out also. I ca see that Jim and Dick got pissed off. I yelled back to them, No rules, right?

To my surprise a car had passed us up and stopped to pick them up. Richie and I waited for twenty minutes and finally got a ride to the entrance to the highway. The person dropped us off and we started to put out our thumbs. After about ten minutes, a pickup truck passed us. We then had noticed that Jim and Dick were sitting in the back of the pick-up. They threw us the finger as they went by. I said to Richie, ˜We´ll get them.´ Richie was laughing and enjoying it. Richie and I waited for about a half hour. Then this purple, brand new GTO, stopped to pick us up. I opened the passenger side door to talk to the person, and when I opened the door, a cloud of Marihuana poured out of the vehicle. It took a few seconds too clear, and I saw this young Mexican guy all dressed in purple with dark purple sunglasses. He said, You guys need a lift? We told him yes. He pulled over to the side of the highway and exited his vehicle to open the trunk. I told the guy thank you for stopping. He said, No problem man. I hope you don´t mind that I want your backpacks in the trunk. I don´t want to hurt the interior of my car. I said we didn´t mind and we again thanked him very much for picking us up. Richie got in the back and I sat in the front. I noticed that the guy even had purple shoes and a purple interior. The guy asked where we were heading and I told him that our car broke down and he was very sorry to hear that. He then offered us a fat joint and Richie and I poked on it. I told the guy we were heading to the Grand Canyon, and that we were racing our buddies that are now ahead of us. He said, Far-out! Then he said that he was going to an old radar station that had been converted into a commune. It was right off the highway heading west. He told us that he would put us heading in the right direction. I said far-out, while Richie and I were passing the fat joint. Then as we were driving, the guy said, How do you like my new car? I said, Yea. It´s beautiful. Thanks. he said. I now just picked it up.... look as he pointed to the odometer. It only has now eight miles on the car. I said, Really. as I looked at the odometer I saw that he wasn´t kidding. He only had eight miles on it. I told him that you just picked it up. He said, ˜Yea.´ Then I handed the fat joint back to him. I told him that he really likes the color purple. He asked, You don´t think it´s too much? I said, No. Not unless you think it´s too much. He said that he thought purple was hip as he poked on the joint. Then I noticed that we were now heading up the same hill that kills our car. It still doesn´t look steep. Then the Mexican pointed to the radar tower off to the right just ahead and said, That´s where I´m going. I´ll let you guys off at the exit coming up. Just then, his car started to choke and I noticed smoke coming out from under the hood. The car started to lose power. The Mexican guy freaked and looked very confused and the smoke was pouring out as he pulled over to the side of the exit and stopped. I said to the Mexican that it was exactly what happened to our vehicle. I asked him to open the trunk because we were having a race and we could not help him. There was nothing we could do. Richie and I grabbed our backpacks. We wished the guy well and we walked to the roadway to try and hitch a ride. We had put our thumbs out and Richie said, Look, pointing west up the highway.
It was Jim and Dick hitching about 500 yards away. I pulled out the camera and took a picture of them.

From Jim and Dick perception, they were hitching on the highway and they saw this car coming up the hill with lots of smoke coming out from under the hood. They started to laugh because it was the same thing that happened to us and they thought that the hill killed another car. They watched the car pull to the side of the road. When the car stopped, as it was emitting smoke, they saw us getting out, and it freaked them out.

Richie and I waited with our thumbs out for about forty--five minutes and then a car tried to stop for us. He was traveling too fast and passed us up and instead stopped for Jim and Dick and picked them up. We were pissed that we lost that ride. For all we know they could go all the way. Richie and I continued to try to hitch for the next two hours and it started to get dark. We decided to stop hitching and we walked about three-hundred feet from the road so that we wouldn´t hear the traffic and we made camp. We cooked some freeze dried food and went to sleep.

We woke up around 5:30am, made coffee, and began to try to hitch again. We had our thumbs out for four hours, but no ride. Many people had passed us up and as they passed, they gave us the peace sign. We threw them back the finger because the peace sign means that they should pick us up. That´s what peace means. Give a brother a hand. Finally an old 1963 Chevy had stopped for us and we put our gear in the trunk and we were off. The first thing we noticed was that the car was making all kinds of strange noise and it wasn´t in very good condition. We introduced ourselves to the driver and he asked us where we were going. I told him the Grand Canyon. He said, Far out. I asked him where he was going and he said that he was going to Oregon. I said, Oregon. He replied, Yes. I said to him that I didn´t think his car would hold up for a distance like that. The driver said that it was an old Chevy and they last. He thought that the car would make it, but that he didn´t have much money and he was hoping that we could help him out with some gas. I asked him if he had ever been to the Grand Canyon and he said no. I asked him how would you like to see the Grand Canyon. He said that he would love to see it. I said then take us there and we will make you dinner and get you high. He asked how far it was off the main highway and I told him only 60 miles. He then said that he didn´t think so because that would put him behind an additional 120 miles. Richie said to him that it is the most beautiful sight you have ever seen. We went back and forth trying to convince him to take us all the way. We kept at it and finally he agreed to join us for dinner at the top of the rim. Then he pulled over and stopped and asked Richie and me if one of us would drive because he got tired and wanted to lie down in the back of the car. I told him no problem. So here we were driving this strange nice guys´ car heading to the Grand Canyon. What a pisser. I told Richie while the guy was sleeping that it´s all the way now. Richie replied, Lets hope the car makes it!

We finally made to the rim of the Grand Canyon to learn that Jim and Dick had made it their first. The guy that picked them up first was a geologist and was going as far as Gallop. They then went to sleep in the dark just off the road when they heard a noise getting louder and louder about 3:00am. It rumbled past them and it was a train. They said that they got scared out of their wits as the train went by. It was so dark that they didn´t notice that they had made camp next to railroad tracks. The next day, Jim, and Dick received a ride directly to the canyon. Richie and I introduced Jim and Dick to our driver friend. We made dinner and viewed the rim for sundown and then we all went to sleep. The next morning we gave the driver $20.00 and he took off and thanked us for everything as we did the same.

We went into the tourist office to learn where we wanted to go in the canyon and we had a shuttle driver take us to the drop off point. We wanted to hit a beach at the bottom. The drop off point was about 2 miles west from the main part of the canyon. Once we arrived, we started to hike down and that evening we had arrived at the bottom. It was dark so we made camp not knowing exactly where we were. After dinner we relaxed by the river and then, as the darkness set in, we all went to sleep. Jim found a little cut out cave and slept in it. During the night I heard a scream. Jim was looking for something and he put on his flashlight and noticed a big spider hanging in front of his face. He then got out of the cave and slept along side of us. About 3:00am we became overwhelmed by horny frogs. They were climbing all over our sleeping bags trying to head to the stream that we were sleeping next to. There were thousands of them. We didn´t really get a good night sleep.

The next day, we explored the area and found a little beach. We made a nice camp and this would be
our home for the next week and a half. We had camped in front of the rapids, and a few times a day we were able to watch people coming down the rapids in a raft. It was pretty cool. A few days later, 100 boy scouts had suddenly arrived. They stormed into our area at 7:00am. They were yelling, screaming, and throwing rocks into the river. They were monsters with no discipline. They had completely ignored us, as if we weren´t there, and they didn´t care whether we wanted to be in peace and quiet. We had to think fast. At first we tried to ignore their presence, but they got worst in their behavior as time went on. Then we decided to walk around without our clothes hoping they would be shocked and leave. It worked! The scout master told all the boys that they were moving camp and they disappeared out of sight. Good thinking.

We now had a great peaceful and serene stay at the beautiful Grand Canyon. We were pushing out and decided to take the first level to the main entrance point and head up from there. We made it to the first level early in the morning and walked east around each long curve and it got hotter and hotter. The temperature was now 105 degrees and there was no shade. We were dying from heat and as we continued we finally saw a big rock that had about a 2 foot long area of shade. We sat in the shaded area for 45 minutes. Now we needed more water since we didn´t take much with us because of the weight. Then we luckily came across a tiny trickle of water that came out of the ground and went about 12 inches into another hole in the ground. We laid down and put our tongs in the water and quenched our thirst. At the end of the day we had made it to the main area and we made camp. The next morning we headed up and it was very strenuous and difficult with the 50 pound backpacks on our back. We were traveling up with tourists on mules and occasionally a tourist would faint and fall off the mule. That is how hot it was. Using mind over matter, thinking you´re not tired, and forcing yourself not to stop. Even though we did occasionally, we had finally
made it to the top. When I arrived to the top I kissed the ground and swore that I will never walk uphill again. At the main area it was easy to hook up with people and we got a ride back to Boulder.