When the chance came along for a big boys’ holiday to California, it took me from a grey,sad Manchester to the golden beaches of California.
Andy and I started in San Francisco. Friends of his mum’s let us stay with them, and whilst we were there, we needed to find transport for the whole journey.
We took a look around San Francisco to find the perfect transport. As we left his mum’s friends’ place, we saw a brown, bay-window Volkswagen bus for $1,200. We thought it looked OK, but continued our search.
Down as far as the Bay Area, Berkeley, and all over San Francisco, we looked for a vehicle.
After about five hours, we returned to the area where we were staying, and there was the $1,200 Volkswagen. Then we realised: this is the bus. This is the bus for us.
The next day, we got the money out and purchased the Volkswagen.
Then we set off to go and see the Grateful Dead at Shea Stadium. It was quite a crazy place, full of Rainbow People. A little like a 15th-century market and a carnival.
This was my first meeting with the Rainbow People. They were all there with long hair, tie-dye, sandals, no shoes and beads. There was vegetarian food and a lot of crazy cigarettes.
We enjoyed ourselves, and they made us feel welcome. We listened to the Grateful Dead, sat on the floor for a little while, and realised we were definitely not in Manchester.
We decided to get into the Volkswagen and head for Big Sur. It was about four hours away.
The radio DJ said, “Hey guys, this is side two of Dark Side of the Moon.” He didn’t speak again until the end of the album. We had never heard a radio DJ play a full side of such a crazy album, but it was absolutely fantastic.
A short while later, we arrived at Big Sur. It was the middle of the night, and we decided to go for a walk along the beach. In the middle of the beach, we met two girls. They were playing acoustic guitars. They asked us if we had a tune that we wanted them to play, but then they said, “Hey, why don’t we just play Wish You Were Here?”
Again, we were not in Manchester. This was California.
The next day, we headed back to San Francisco to pick up Rick, Jake and Rowan. We met them at the airport, bundled them into the bus and headed for Mendocino. It took us about three hours.
We met Andy’s mum’s friend and her two sons. She was a spiritual healer, and her sons were hillbillies. Well, rainbow hillbillies.
We got acquainted and chilled out for a few days. The Volkswagen developed an oil leak, so the next thing was to fix the Volkswagen whilst commuting along the coast between the small town of Manchester and Mendocino.
We picked up two hitchhikers somewhere near the commune where Winona Ryder lived. The two guys looked like Rainbow People, hillbillies. No shoes, crazy hair, tie-dyed shirts, no fixed abode.
They took one look at us guys in the van and thought we were the crazy ones. We thought they were the crazy ones. Anyhow, we all got on pretty well. They were happy to have a lift to the town.
I’m thinking we had picked up two crazy guys from 1968, even though this was 1995.
Towards the end of the journey, they mentioned a party that was happening the following weekend at the Hog Farm. They said we should go.
So, after the Volkswagen was fixed, we headed for the Hog Farm. We arrived in the car park and realised this was a baby Woodstock Festival. Yellow buses, Volkswagens, hippies, Rainbow People, aged between 80 and 2, with one thing in common: they were all there to have a crazy, wild festival.
The car park started to fill, and we realised we were going to have a great time.
Somebody offered us Golden Top Mexican mushrooms. We took them and dissolved into the festival.
After an hour or so, a woman on stage explained about chakras: the colours around your head, throat, chest, stomach and pelvis. She told us how to push the light down through our bodies to relieve all illnesses.
It felt pretty amazing. Then I realised, I need to find out who this woman is. I need to write her name down and put it in my back pocket for the next day, you know.
I headed straight back to a small tent. It was the tent I had visited before. It was the tent where the guy was making moccasins. You know the kind: all Grateful Dead and Rainbow People. Long hair, handmade clothes, some tribal jewellery and, of course, moccasins.
I looked at this guy who was the moccasin maker. He looked just like Gandalf the Grey. Six foot four, wearing a full hemp tracksuit, knee-high moccasins, long white hair, a long white beard and a felt magician’s pointy hat in natural greys.
This guy was tripping, dude. Wow.
He said, “Where are you from?”
I said, “I’m from Manchester, England.”
He said, “Sit down.”
I said, “OK.”
He said, “What are you doing here?”
I said, “I’ve read Carlos Castaneda, and I wanted to meet Mescalito.”
But then I also said I wanted to learn more about moccasins because, after watching Hawkwind at Brixton Academy a few years before, I had had a vision where the whole place turned from a gig venue into a desert, with cactus and sand. I was wearing elk-skin Wallabys and brown-cord Levi’s, which at the time felt like Native American clothing.
So that’s what I told this guy. You know the one, the Gandalf guy.
Turns out his name was Grey Wolf, and the adventure into my American dream had just started.
Nige.
