Rick and Chris, our intrepid Vietnam vet/hippie heroes, have managed to make it across the California state line and into Oregon. We join them as they continue up Highway 101:
November 28, 1970, continued - We made it to Brookings at 14:00 and stopped at Harris Beach State Park to steal a shower and do our laundry, activities you wouldn't normally associate with your standard, garden variety, dirty hippie scum types. Oh well...we're willing to bend the rules, as long as the shock value is undiminished.
We lingered too long and darkness caught us; also, when we tried to leave, Oatus wouldn't respond to the starter so we decided to hang around and see what morning brought. Evening brought something else first – maniacs with loud cars and loud horns. Little did we realize as we built Oatus what an astounding effect he would have on otherwise possibly normal people. It appears he drives them into a sort of hysteria which causes them to start screaming and blaring their horns as they roar past the truck at great speed. Peculiar phenomenon, and it caused us to force Oatus out of his self-imposed hibernation and back onto the road to find more acceptable lodgings for the night.
November 29, 1970 Sunday – Got on the road at 10:00 this morning with the weather holding out nicely. The tires were going flat so we stopped at the first gas station we could find at Pistol River and asked the attendant if he had any air.
“Yer breathin' it,” was all he said.
We guessed that he was saying “no” so we settled for a buck's worth of gas for the Family Dog and two bucks worth for Oatus. This held us until Port Orford when we stopped again for a fill up - $9.00 worth.
At 14:00 we rolled into Bandon and stopped to look up a friend of Granny Hip's named Hazel. Her antique shop was closed but I managed to call her at home although that didn't really accomplish anything. We hit the road again at 14:30 with ominous black clouds building up offshore.
Coos Bay was a fight to get through – a big busy lumber town that we were more than glad to put astern. got into Winchester Bay around dusk and laid two quarts of oil on Oatus, who has taken up the nasty habit of smoking like a chimney. The weather is really going foul and it's getting colder.
We finally tied up for the night a mile north of Gardiner on a side road at the top of a hill, right above a stinking, smoking paper mill.
The rear end is leaking oil badly – something that will have to be corrected before we go taking off tomorrow. calling it quits for the day I trundled on down into Gardiner and called Lou and my folks.
Not bad – 150 miles today. Our best so far. If we can keep this up, Friday will find us home free – maybe.
