My USA road trip diary begins on Thursday 15 July 1976, I had turned 21 that January and had arrived in New York from London the previous August. I lived in Goshen, New York with my then American wife Kris and her family. These are extracts from my recently turned up diary of the road trip.

* An explanatory note for clarification for anyone reading this. In early 75 I was living and studying in London where I met and later married Kris, short for Kristyne, in Fulham Registry Office (cost £8). The main reason for this marriage of convenience, although we did live together, was that I had a desire to live in the USA, despite never having been there. I applied for a Green Card and went through the strict and cumbersome process at the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square. Chest X- Ray for TB was produced, I had to swear I wasn’t a Communist looking to overthrow the US Government and they also did their background checks on me and even sent a local agent to what was then then Rhodesia, (where I had spent most of my childhood) to interview my Dad about my political background. Not a lot to report on there at that time.

We eventually landed in at JFK New York in August 75 and I found myself living in the family home in Goshen, New York. I didn’t get on at all well with Kris’s parents, second generation Polish immigrants on both sides, they were proto Reaganites who because I was from the UK thought I was a Communist or a Socialist at the very least and quite dangerous too.  But I did manage to get a couple of jobs both house painting and worked in a warehouse.

My artistic sister Jane, who was living in Bristol at the time, proposed a summer visit with Chris, her then boyfriend, also from Bristol, a music enthusiast and mobile DJ. I welcomed the opportunity to escape. I had my heart set on California. Soon after they arrived the journey began and the day we drove out of Goshen we left a flourishing vegetable garden behind. I never saw Kris’s parents again and left it far behind. 

Taken somewhere near the beginning of the journe

Approximate route taken, about 6000 miles over six weeks, mid July to the end of August 1976.

Part 1 New York to Pennsylvania

I had been living in upstate New York in Goshen for the best part of a year with my then American wife Kristyne. This was in Orange County near to Middletown and Newburgh, not far from the Hudson River. I escaped to New York City many times, which was only an hour away by bus and enjoyed cruising around Greenwich Village soaking up the atmosphere, doing some tourist things, reading the Village Voice every week. The City was in a state of decline and near bankruptcy then. (Think 1970s Taxi Driver and you get the picture.) 
The land of Goshen in reality was a dinky little conservative town with possibly two traffic lights, but it was where I passed my New York State driving test. There was a silver 10 year old Chevy Nova parked up nearby that someone was trying to get rid of, I gave them a nominal $1 for it and drove it away. It needed some work to get it roadworthy and the engine had a distinctive tapping noise too, which I never fixed. 
I couldn’t wait to get out of there and head for California so when my job in a warehouse in Lloyds department store in nearby Middletown came to an end and when my sister Jane and her then boyfriend Chris arrived to visit for the summer I thought here’s my chance. 
All four of us packed up and climbed into the two door Chevy and away we went heading south into New Jersey. My diary tells me our first night was at a place called Succasunna at the home of Kris’s cousin Lisa and her husband Gary. I liked them. We all went out to a nearby bar to drink Molson Ale and eat rye biscuits. I found Penny, the family Alsatian, lying on my bed in the morning when I woke. 
We ventured over to Charlie’s Happy Motoring Shop for some essential repairs where a screw was put into the gas tank to seal a small hole and 6 inches was cut off the tailpipe to stop it dragging on the ground, it was now a low slung car with our combined weight. 
We kissed those cousins goodbye, and sadly never saw them again, and we drove through rain and drizzle onto Route 80, we were finally on the first stage of our way to California. We were in The Poconos, Vacationland USA and our first night was camping at a place called Hickory Run State park where the camping fee was $3. The evening meal was red beans and rice and we dreamed of Philadelphia. The car only had an AM radio but we did have a battery powered portable cassette machine which to play ‘our’ music. 
Driving through Penn Dutch country we couldn’t help but see the hex signs painted on barns and landed at French Creek State park just 30 miles from Philly. A cooling swim on a hot day in Six Penny Lake and we were close to Daniel Boone’s homestead…

My very crude sketch of the Chevy from a page of the diary.

Part 2. Pennsylvania to DC

Before we got to Philadelphia there was more car trouble. My diary tells me that the Chevy’s radiator boiled over three times before we got there, which meant pulling over to cool it all down, before it happened again. We must have fixed the problem because there’s no further mention of it after this. Still ‘gas’ was at the time around 50 cents a US gallon. 
The diary is noticeably slim on entries when it comes to Philly, cradle of the Revolution, exactly 200 years before, and definitely Bicentennial City and it was certainly bedecked in swathes of red, white and blue everywhere. The Bicentennial had infested every single flagpole, garbage can and baseball cap in sight. There was a character playing Benjamin Franklin in the streets around the famous Liberty Bell. We also passed a park where a game of cricket was being played, we thought it odd. But there it ends that’s all I’ve got from the city that gave us some extraordinary music over the years but in 1976 it was the Brothers Johnson, Candi Staton, Wings, Hall and Oates, The Steve Miller Band and Thin Lizzy amongst others playing in rotation on the AM radio we had in the car, when we weren’t tuning into a preacher shouting at us and asking us if we had been saved yet? (The answer was no, still haven’t, most unlikely now.) 
We were two couples, Jane and Chris, Kris and myself, moving along in close company in the car, three of us were drivers, so we shared that and pitched our two tents at night at the various campsites we stopped at with a fairly primitive camping stove too. But there were occasionally points of tension and friction that mostly seemed to be around food. 
Passing through southern Pennsylvania we entered the state of Delaware and landed at Lums Pond State Park where they charged us $4 for the night, our most expensive night so far. We saw many turtles in the pond and swam there in the morning amongst the fish. (It says here.) The sun was out and it was warm so I remember staying here an extra day getting bronzed by the sun and reading the Herman Hesse novel Narcissus and Goldmund. 
We entered the state of Maryland and soon were crossing the two mile bridge over Chesapeake Bay towards Washington DC but by-passed Annapolis, home of recently disgraced former Vice President Spiro Agnew and Superman. (Both incorrect, Agnew was from Baltimore and Superman from the planet Krypton but that’s what I wrote down at the time.) We had only travelled 300 miles in 4 days!

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Contemporary photograph.

Part 3 . No. 3 DC to Virginia

Entering the District of Columbia on a swelteringly humid summer’s afternoon we headed straight for the Greenbelt Federal Park for a couple of nights camping, this was only $2 a night for a pitch at the time. To get into the city we caught a shuttle bus from nearby RFK stadium and immediately dived in and lost ourselves amongst the enormous and extensive displays inside the world famous Smithsonian Museum for a few hours. Fascinating and absorbing to learn about different cultures – Pacific, Asian, African and indigenous as well as the Ice Age. (I wonder how it is now, very different I’m sure). I always have a problem with places like this, they are just too big these vast palaces of images, artefacts and information, I run out of energy before I’ve had my fill. I regret not spending longer there and in other nearby museums, but four people all in their early twenties wanted to get a move on. 
Washington DC, as is well known, has a split personality – on one hand there’s the Federal district with its White House, Capitol, Supreme Court and all its monuments and museums to famous people, presidents and pieces of history and then in complete contrast there’s the overwhelmingly Black Washington. Two worlds apart. 
We stood under the giant figure of Lincoln sitting on his giant chair looking out, strolled along Constitution Avenue past the Washington Monument and stared into the reflecting pool outside the front of the White House, but it was not a still day so the reflection was not to be seen. Gerald Ford was the then incumbent, to be turfed out by Jimmy Carter later in the year. 
A quick stop at Famous Luigi’s for Pizza lunch. (Google maps tells me this is now permanently closed.) Onwards to the Renwick Museum, connected to the Smithsonian, for an exhibition of symbols and signs of American life – streets, homes and the corporate world. For some forgotten reason we went on a futile bus trip to Fort Belvoir and back, something to do with the US Army. Eventually we made our way back to RFK stadium and to our car parked up to return to the campsite, shattered and exhausted and with some bickering between the two couples after a long hot day’s sightseeing. 
The next day, which was a Wednesday, we drove onto the beltway westwards towards Vienna, Virginia and having stopped to make some emergency repairs to the hose clamp on that troublesome Chevy again, filled up with provisions from a road stop called MacGruders. Finally we got onto the famous Skyline Drive through the Shenandoah National Park and 105 miles of mountains with camper vans aplenty and many signs warning of wild animals about. This was a beautiful trouble free drive and we were able to drink in the stunning views and scenery and really begin to enjoy ourselves heading south through Virginia and after that into North Carolina. 

Photo shows Kris, Jane and Chris walking towards the Capitol.

Below is a found image of the 66 Chevy Nova, right colour but ours looked a bit rougher and had some rust creeping in. 

Part 4. North Carolina at last 

Leaving the nation’s capital behind us in the rear view mirror of our sometimes misfiring Chevy we cruised along Skyline Drive in rural Virginia on a misty, hazy day and came to rest at the end of it at a place called Goodwin State, we had a swim in the lake and stayed there the night and in the morning took a cool shower before the temperature climbed into the 90s. A diary entry read ‘We missed the smokey bears’. (I couldn’t recall the context so had to research it.  Smokey the Bear was the face of the then federal government’s aggressive wildfire suppression policy.)

We, the not always happy foursome, were now a week and seven states into our odyssey across the USA and beginning to stretch out and enjoy it. The weather was really muggy in rural Virginia, tobacco country too, and we parked up at Occoneechee State Park on a massive reservoir. I also read there the tragic story of the Occoneechee people who were massacred by Nathaniel Bacon’s rebellion in 1676 near Roanoke on the borders of Virginia and North Carolina. 

The insects were getting bigger the further south we travelled. By chance our next stop was at Buggs Island Lake and campsite, well named for the sound of the massive insect orchestra that played every evening, no doubt with a huge contingent of cicadas adding their voices. But this was a good place to swim and relax in the humidity. It appeared that we all got on well here and knuckled down to playing games of pinochle. No mention of drinking much, but there must have been the occasional cold beer downed, (you certainly wouldn’t want warm American beer.) I made a note to myself to take more photographs, something I failed to heed, except for a few slides taken here and there. At this point the Chevy was running fine apart from the muffler banging away, surely it wouldn’t last? The Voice of God or even Jesus was preaching again on the radio airwaves, anything for a bit of change from the never ending cycle of mostly inane 1976 pop hits interspersed with travel and weather reports and crazy ads. 

We rocked and rolled into Raleigh, North Carolina on Friday 23 July looked for an elusive contact called Martin, a friend of Chris’s from Bristol who lived there. One of his flatmates called Norm entertained us and talks our ears off, but he had a great sense of humour. Norm was a wannabe musician who worked in a piano shop and told us he was wanting to start a band called Madness. (Not that one!) It took us a while to adjust to the accents of the people we met in Raleigh, but we did. My diary notes that we frequented a place called Blimpies for beer and sandwiches, a quart of beer was 68 cents at the time! We listened to some Zappa, smoke some green grass and did our washing at the campus launderette. I think this was in the middle of a student dominated district of Raleigh’s close by the North Carolina SU campus. Some locals saw our New York plates and shouted ‘What you doin’ here Yankees?’ Little did they know were were 75% British. 

The midnight movie that Saturday was Robert Altman’s 1975 smash Nashville, as we were going to be there in the next few days it seemed like a good film to check out and for the price of one dollar entrance. Lily Tomlin, Ned Beatty and Shelley Duvall stood out at the time. I loved its satire and somehow being here in the South for the first time was beginning to make sense. We all much enjoyed the hospitality given to us by our new found friends in Raleigh and stayed in their spare rooms for three nights and will never forget Norm and his synthesizer project Madness. (Sadly I never got to hear the music as we lost touch.) 

On the Monday we headed for the Smokey Mountains via Chapel Hill and Winston Salem having filled up with high test gas, the mileage read 64865, not sure why I wrote that down. We reached the Smokies and aimed for Mitchell Mountain at just under 7000 feet the highest point in the Appalachians and east of the Mississippi. An example of the mica from the mountain is glued into my diary, pictured here.

We appeared to have camped at a place called appropriately Black Mountain. The next day for some strange reason we visited the RJ Reynolds factory at Winston Salem to look at the Camels. (Did I even smoke at the time?) Close to leaving North Carolina – one further note the day’s petrol input was $13 and our V8 engine was guzzling gas at 15 miles per gallon. 

Mount Mitchell view – contemporary image.

Part 5. Tennessee – a crash in Pigeon Forge

On Wednesday 28 July we left Black Mountain behind and crawled towards Asheville heading for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Wonderful rolling scenic views and pine trees spoilt later by blighted roadside commercialism through Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. We had just partaken of buckwheat pancakes at Joe’s Pancake House when things came to an abrupt stop in Pigeon Forge when our erstwhile driver, Kris, panicked in traffic, lost control and we were sideswiped by a Ford Motor Home and came to a halt only a few feet from a riverbank. Wheel flattened and fender and headlight gone. A State Trooper called Fred attended, sorted out everyone, no-one injured just a bit shocked. He was more taken with us being from the UK and talked incessantly about his model railway passion! We put the spare tyre on somehow and crawled to a nearby campsite for the night, stopping to buy a few beers on the way. 

The next morning we sought out a giant scrap yard – Raceway Auto Parts Inc of Seiverville and spent three hours there locating a comparable Chevy model (of a different colour) and found a fender, headlight and mudguard. They helped us bang the car back into shape, align the wheels and charged us a princely $100 and we were just about roadworthy as we headed off into deepest Tennessee through Knoxville and landed at Cumberland State Park for a night of camping. Nashville and its pickin’ parlours awaited.

Part 6. Nashville and its pickin’ parlours

We left the bad memories of the car crash behind in East Tennessee, but not before the tent had collapsed on our heads in the middle of the night, and headed west in our now silver and blue Chevy towards Nashville. We were four cramped in our car with tents, sleeping bags and a primitive camping stove. With only an AM radio in the car for entertainment! We drove on to the Cedars of Lebanon State Park not far from Nashville to spend a couple of nights and bought 12 ears of corn for dinner. (It says here.) 

We drove into Nashville, then and now called Music City USA. Parked up and admired the State Capitol building, which was completed in 1859 and designed by William Strockland of Philadelphia. But there in the grounds was a monument, a homage to Andrew Jackson, infamous slave owner and then Tennessee’s favourite son and President from 1829 to 1837.

We walked into the city and found ourselves at the Country Music Hall of Fame, admission was then $1.50 and I saw fairly cheap displays with plastic models and quite poor drawings of Hank Williams, Roy Rogers, Hoyt Axton, Gene Autry and others. (Oh how things have changed in the interim.) 

We bumped into an aspiring musician from Memphis called Smeed of whom we heard no more. Time to eat – we found a pizza place, but found it very thin and unfulfilling. We settled on an evening at the Bluegrass Inn with a jug of beer. There was some fine picking in the parlour that night. A 30 mile drive back to the Cedars of Lebanon with a Nashville Skyline in our rear mirror. For some reason I wrote down “Watch out for Jerry Jeff Walker” famous for writing Mr Bojangles. I’m not sure we saw him play but I must have picked up something about him. Next stop was Memphis over the horizon 200 miles away.

Part 7. To Memphis and beyond

Heading west towards Memphis and the mighty Mississippi we made a picnic stop at Natchez Trace State Park before going past Millington, a US Navy station on the way into Memphis. We stopped for the night at Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park. There we tuned into people playing bluegrass in the camp with the banjos and fiddles coming out to play, perfect music in absolutely the right setting for it. They were a group aptly called Countryside with four voices in harmony treating us to ‘Fox on the Run’ (originally by The Sweet) and ‘Down in the Blue Ridge Mountains’. 

This was a damp night with continuous rain and thunder compounded by the deflating of the air mattress overnight. Rise to a hot shower and an oatmeal breakfast. (Who am I to disagree with my diary?) 

The Chevy found its way through downtown Memphis and we quite matter of factly passed the gates of Graceland, half expecting the man himself to come out and wave to us as we passed by, because Elvis was still very much alive then, this was just about a year before he passed, but all we saw were shuttered gates and drove on. Memphis, Tennessee by Chuck Berry came to mind. 

We crossed the famous ole Mississippi River and found ourselves in Arkansas. We must have seen all of five minutes of the mighty river, so quickly did we cross it, should have had more respect. The five of us, for now I’m counting the Chevy as a character in our journey, crossed great plains to Mount Nebo State Park, where we spent two nights for $2.50 a night. The elevation was 1800 feet and we had a breathtaking view of the Arkansas River Valley, but this was a very windy spot. More rain at night. I was reading Sinclair Lewis’s novel Main Street at this time. 

I can’t recall a lot about Arkansas, my recall of its recent history recalls violence at Little Rock and the then Governor seeking to impede desegregation of the schools there causing Eisenhower to send in federal troops in the late 50s. We camped also at Lake Dardanelle, another pretty spot to spend a night. 

The diary records that our tents were buffeted by fierce winds causing us to get up and get going just after sunrise and into the Chevy heading for Fort Smith, which was a long slightly bewildering drive punctuated by enormous roadside signs for fast foods. I noted the first appearance of ‘The Taco’ in the restaurants. Shopping in Safeway and then crossing the state line into Oklahoma and pitching up at Fountainhead State Park. (Nothing to do with Ayn Rand). 

Mount Nebo view over Arkansas, found image.

Part 8 Oklahoma and Texas (hardly a musical) 

We entered the Sooner State on Wednesday 4 August, almost two weeks into our haphazard journey with Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muscogee’ ringing in our ears. There was an oil derrick on the lawns of the impressive State Capitol in Oklahoma City, which told me that oil was struck here in 1928. We paid a visit to the nearby Oklahoma Historical Association to discover that the state was founded in 1907 and that it was the 46^th state. It was here that I read up about Will Rogers, wit, columnist, actor and Oklahoma’s favourite son, who was a member of the Cherokee Nation.

Will Rogers 1879 – 1935

I bought myself a black felt hat for $8 at a Cherokee Trading Post, sadly no pictures exist, and I can’t remember it, but this could have been the start of my subsequent life long interest in hat buying and wearing. A song that got loads of radio play at this time was ‘Take the money and run’ by The Steve Miller Band. 

Oklahoma City was also the place where we connected with Route 66, then still visible in parts but much diminished and mostly superseded by I-40, but still resonating strongly in folklore. We hit sections of the famous old road where possible – that ran from Chicago to LA, with its own folklore and theme song – from Nat King Cole to Chuck Berry to The Stones and the rest. 

We rolled into Red Canyon State Park off Route 40 at a place called Hinton, close by the Canadian River and felt we were getting close to the centre of this bicentennial nation. 

Red earth was all around us and millions of ants were on the ground too. The next day we did a pit stop at Weatherford, OK to visit a launderette and Kris decided to pay a visit to the Southwestern Oklahoma State University, was she looking for a job here or to enrol as a student I can’t remember? But nothing materialised from it. Pineapple malts were then consumed. Why? It was Oklahoma after all. The heat was rising and the land was flat and there was not a tree in sight. 

We were travelling in a straight line due west through the northern tip of the vast state of Texas. We didn’t meet many big hatted Texans, saw a few but little interaction apart from gas stations and wayside eateries. We were heading straight across the Texas Panhandle for Amarillo and of course the Tony Christie song was in our heads for hours. Palo Duro Canyon State Park was our next destination, this was our first stay in a canyon and it was a huge one, it felt like it belonged in a Western and we were in the desert at night for the first time. It was south east of Amarillo and due north of Buddy Holly’s hometown of Lubbock. 

Palo Duro Canyon. Credit to Andy Rhodes

The evening meal for us that night was a typical Western kidney beans and rice. Back in Middletown, New York I had been involved with a college theatre troupe and the play I worked on, with sound effects etc was The Holy Ghostly, an early play by the prolific playwright, screenwriter and actor Sam Shepard, that reminded me of this Texas canyon. It was set in the lonely American desert badlands, home to witches garbed in coyote skins and demons. (Shepard came into play later on in San Francisco.)

A minor whirlwind whips through the tent at 2 AM, waking everyone up. In the morning there are many Texas doodlebugs about (large wood lice) and the sight of cacti was becoming more and more common in these desert conditions of over 90 degrees of dry heat. 

Part 9 New Mexico at last and up into the Rockies.

After our brief journey across the Texas Panhandle it was New Mexico next, our 12^th state and our first one in Mountain time. Our first stop inside the state was a place called Logan and then onto Ute Lake State Park, where swimming was essential to cool off. This was north of I-40 and the by now fairly discreet Route 66. 

I wrote at the time “Plunge into a cool reservoir with a sharp sun and a liberating breeze. Disney skies while the bright moon rises. Take your seats for the sunset please.” But where was the photograph I never took? 

The next morning our now so dependable Chevy steered us further west towards Santa Fe. Now this was a place we were all taken with, with its Pueblo style adobe houses and much Spanish influence, it was like entering a different world from the mid USA world we had driven through. It was the kind of place that you instantly think, yes I could live here. Kris and I bought a triptych of Sante Fe images for some future residence, but I can’t recall it now but it must have been compelling enough to purchase at the time. From Santa Fe we climbed into the surrounding mountains looking for a campsite and ran into an intense hail storm, which was so severe that we thought it would break our car’s windows. We camped at a place called Hyde Park and ate chilli and rice. After a wet, cold night the next morning brought a chill in the air and a breakfast of oatcakes. We filled up in Santa Fe with gas, oil and onions? 

Santa Fe as it might have looked in the 1880s

The road north led towards the the state of Colorado and the Rockies, impressive and massive in front of us. Snow capped peaks immediately came into view, we camped beside a fishing lake with a present wind blowing into our shelter. 

By the next afternoon we were in Denver Colorado. Kris briefly considered looking at the University of Denver as a potential place to work, she had a teaching degree in theatre studies, but it was not be be, we all had more travelling inside us. We camped that night at Cherry Creek, one of our more urban campsites on this road trip. 

Boulder was our next stop via the Denver-Boulder Expressway, we went through Boulder into the foothills of the Rockies and looked for a campsite called Saw Mill, which we never found so instead plumped for Kelly Dahl Campsite in Blackhawk, three miles south of a place called Nederland. Next morning we took the twisted road down to Boulder, an alternative bohemian enclave at this time and the sprawling and vast campus of the University of Colorado. Kris was again looking at staying here. I didn’t want to, neither did Jane or Chris, but fortunately it didn’t happen. 

In Boulder we came across the Green Mountain Natural Food Store where we bought bulgur wheat, oats, soy beans, honey, tamari sauce and granola. After shopping we alighted on the Dark Horse, a restaurant and bar and venue full of memorabilia and oblique messages. A pitcher of beer was $1.25, we had three of them. After a huge harmless salad, comprising of mostly cheese and lettuce we heard the sounds of men cheering over in the corner. It was one of those wet T shirt competitions, (this was the mid 1970s) but we decided against joining the leering, peering men lined up whistling and cheering what they saw and left the establishment soon after and stumbled back to the campsite. Can’t remember who was driving that night. 

This was glued onto a page in my diary.

The next day, a Wednesday, we sped away towards the Rocky Mountains proper through Estes Park and near to Longs Peak on our way into the Rocky Mountain National Park, just $2 to drive through at the time. Where’s John Denver when you need him? We were driving through a broken landscape where frost had shattered the rocks, evidence of glaciers and almost an Alpine tundra feel, it felt like a very fragile world. The highest point we reached on that day was 12,183 feet above sea level and the weather was a mixture of snow flurries,bitter cold temperatures and some sunshine. We ran out of superlatives and just wondered at this extraordinary landscape in silence. We had crossed the Continental Divide into the Western side of the continent at Milner Pass. The rivers were now flowing towards the Pacific. The Chevy had passed the mountain test. 

Rocky Mountains National Park

Part 10. Latter days in Utah and the Arches

We drove through the fragile world at the top of the Rockies, which felt crossing the top of the world, and eventually began to descend on the western side. Just past Shadow Mountain Lake we located Willow Creek where there was a peaceful lake at the campsite. The weather was cold and it rained at night. The next morning the sun was shining and we headed off west towards the state of Utah. 242 miles were covered that day going through the Green Mountain area and passing by the Blue, Eagle and Colorado rivers. We went through Vail Pass and 18 miles of major road repairs which caused some delay, but we didn’t care, time wasn’t really a limit. Through Rifle and Hot Sulphur Springs to Island Acres on the banks of the fast flowing Colorado River. It felt like we were in a Western movie and expected scouts to be picking us out from the top of the high cliffs that surrounded us. 

The topic of money raised its ugly head and as were were pooling our expenses we determined to spend a whole ten dollars a day on running costs and fuel. None of us knew where we would end up. We drove to Grand Junction where we ‘robbed’ a bank for our cash and bought bread, ice and gas in that order. Some delays were experienced getting out of town on West 70. 

Utah was in front of us, all deserted and dry, in more ways than one. All I knew of the state was that this was the Church of Latter Day Saints ‘Mormon’ state and that it was dry of alcohol. The only signs of life as the highway stretched out in front of us were the telephone wires and the very occasional vehicle passing in the other direction. We pitched up in the biblical sounding town of Moab, which was an early Mormon town and in the centre of Red Rock Canyon country, we had decided to head for the nearby world renowned Arches National Park just a few miles north. 

Like a Western landscape – The Arches.

The sandstone features of totally stunning and at times eerie towers, arches and balanced rocks had been carved out by wind, water, frost and sun over millennia. I wrote down at the time that over 150 million years there had been a deposit of 300 foot layer of the red silty Entrada Sandstone. We saw the graceful arches, the courthouse towers, the Tower of Babel, The Organ, The Window and The Three Gossips here. If the terrain looked a bit familiar it is because this area has been used as a location in many Western movies, beginning with John Ford in the 1950s.

Our touring Chevy stopped at Panorama Point, where we had a snack, but we missed out on Delicate Arch as we felt it too far to walk in the 100 degree heat. The majestic shapes hewn in the rock included the Fiery Furnace and the Devil’s Playground. We drove back down through Moab and onto Monticello, heading for Arizona. That night’s camping was in Manti-La Sal National Forest, well it sounded cooler in the mountains at over 10,000 feet. 

Part 11 Drop into the Grand Canyon and a visit to Zion

The next diary entry is from the Southern Rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. A giant yawning layered chasm stretching out for miles below and beyond us. The Colorado River that caused all this looks like a silver stream at the bottom of the canyon. We gingerly followed the Southern Rim trail, hoping not to fall in when a spectacular carved amphitheatre came into view. It was so, so dry and hot there in August, with just a few green spots of vegetation visible. A sightseeing plane flew over for a better view. Signs of earlier rock falls and a few birds who let us know they are there. 

It’s Saturday night and party time at the Canyon campsite “with a Hopi Wind blowing down my spine.” Fellow travellers from Long Island share some ‘Hoboken Red’ with us and I walk over to the rim and gaze into the abyss. The next day there’s time for more canyon gazing and looking at the ruins of primitive houses nearby. 

Taken from the Southern Rim, Grand Canyon

We drive back into Utah, it’s not that far and head for Zion National Park. Here there are towering red cliffs on three sides under a starry night with hardly any light pollution above. Shooting stars overhead explode across the sky for a moment, creating an exciting show in the heavens. Someone plays the flute in the distance across the campsite, it is a strangely eerie place. 

Taken deep inside Zion National Park

We have now travelled almost 5000 miles on our journey and are about a week away from the end point of this journey. To be frank it will be good to have a break from this almost daily 200 mile journey. The goal for Kris and I is San Francisco where we hope to live, work and play, meanwhile Jane and Chris will depart back to the East Coast and catch a flight back to the UK.

Viva Las Vegas or bust?

Like a shiny magnet in the desert the city and lights of Las Vegas pulled us in as we crossed from Utah into Nevada. I half expected to see Sinatra or one or other of the Rat Pack hanging out on The Strip but I was to be disappointed, but there were big signs advertising Tom Jones performing at Caesars Palace amongst a multitude of fountains. Why were we drawn to tacky Las Vegas, as none of us were gamblers? We were just curious to check out this city in the desert that never sleeps. We happened to meet a friendly off duty soldier, whose name I never noted down, who invited us to his apartment for a drink and a chat and he explained his view of Vegas, and gave us some tips. He was stationed at a base nearby. 

70s Las Vegas

A few names of the establishments that I noted down at the time were Silver City Casino, Showboat, Lucky Lady and Mr Sy’s as well as the aforementioned Caesars Palace. They were all designed to pull you in to gamble with offers of all you can eat breakfasts for 49 cents as long as you play the slots or something else. Drinks brought to you while you play the slots. There were no clocks on the walls either, designed to make you forget how long you had spent there. 

The wheel spins, the chips are down, the house always wins in the end. At night this was Neon City USA, creating the illusion of excitement and glamour. A motel advertises “a refrigerated pool and peace.” We didn’t summon up the courage to go for the tables, with our diminished financial reserves this seemed foolish, but we drank in and observed the behaviour of people addicted to the slots and the tables. 

The next day was a recovery day away from the bright lights we travelled several miles east out of Babylon to Boulder Beach on Lake Mead. Pebbles, hot sun, a zephyr of a breeze and warm water to swim in. We moved on to have a look at the famous Hoover Dam where it tamed the Colorado River, an impressive sight, built in the 1930s under FDR’s economic recovery works to provide hydroelectric power and irrigation water to agriculture in the states of California, Arizona and Nevada. Thousands of construction workers helped to build it and over 100 died on site. We also drove on the road on top of the dam wall that day, this was Route 93. 

We were in a desert paradise and marvelled at the diverse vegetation of yucca, Joshua Trees (long before U2 named an album after them) and various cacti. We enjoyed Boulder City so much we returned the next day to stock up on gas, bread, taco shells and ice. Calm water and pebbles everywhere, a great place to unwind. 

A brief return to Las Vegas to a place called Circus Circus (I wondered why) where there was a post office and Kris got news in a letter from her parents back in Goshen, New York. It all seemed so far away now, both literally and in the mind half a world away. We stopped at the Showboat Hotel and had an all you can eat lunch for $2.50 – various salads, garbanzos, red beans, sweet corn and iced tea. Stuff it all in while playing Keno. A meal of giant proportions far too big for my shrunken stomach and large eyes. 

A little later we’re on our way out of Nevada and driving through the Mojave Desert we finally enter the Golden State of California. 

Today was Friday 20^th August 1976 and we had one week to go before we reached our final destination of San Francisco in the Golden State of California.

California Here We Come

One of our party, Kris, decides to push more coins into the waiting arms of a slot machine near Afton just inside the California state line, hoping that those melons, oranges and raspberries to line up. They don’t. Chris and Jane play Keno and win some, lose some. I watch and decide that gambling is not for me, while an ant bites my ankle and the sun slowly descends. We are still in the Mojave Desert and it is warm and arid and we are parched. 

It is now Saturday 21^st August and today we finally get much closer to the Pacific Ocean. We drive through San Bernardino and reach Featherly Park, Anaheim where we camp in the overflow campsite where for $3 a night we pitch our two tents. The next morning we drive on towards Newport Beach where the ocean is blue, calm and very salty tasting (unsurprisingly!) and then onto Long Beach where the seagulls gather overhead and we pitch the tent in a ditch for some unknown reason. There’s a surreal party atmosphere on the beach with mostly tanned and toned Californians showing off. 

Sunday 22nd and the mood in our camp isn’t so good, there is tension and bad vibes about, could the reason be that we are nearing the end of our journey? We drive into Los Angeles in the old Chevy without any fanfare – a huge, sprawling metropolis, parts of it looking strangely familiar from films and TV. We have no idea where to go so we head for a name and place we recognize – the sign on the Hollywood Hills. We drive up into and around Laurel Canyon, possibly looking for either Joni Mitchell, who lived there at the time, or John Mayall whose album ‘Blues from Laurel Canyon’ came out in 1968. Not a film or music star in sight.

Laurel Canyon – Hollywood, Hollyweird

There’s a fine view of the LA smog line from above and there’s Beverley Hills and Bel Air over there. The signs point to Sunset Boulevard, Burbank and Santa Monica way over there. It’s only a day spent here, not enough time to take much in. None of us feel that we want to stay here for long – Los Angeles feels too big, too many people and not relaxed. We come out the other side and camp north of the city near Oxnard and later dive into the safe ocean. 

Smoggy skyline

On the next day we reach Point Mugu State Park about 30 miles north with its Mediterranean climate with masses of palm trees and yuccas. It feels like a sub tropical paradise, no wonder people are drawn to the West Coast like a magnet. The night before we visit a bar to play some pool and drink beer.

In the morning I spent some time continuing to read the then enormously successful philosophical ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ by Robert M. Pirsig, published two years previously and lent to me by Chris. It is a fictionalized autobiography of a long journey that Pirsig made on his Honda CB77 motorcycle from Minnesota to Northern California along with his son Chris in 1968. 

While I read on the beach, the tide has almost come in, Kris wipes her glasses, Jane sits drawing at a table beyond and Chris is reading a free LA newspaper. It’s 11am and 70 degrees and a boat sits out at anchor swaying gently in the light breeze. 

Highway 101 runs behind us. Trucks, cars and bikes roar along the ocean front. Paul Simon’s song ‘50 ways to leave your lover’ is playing gently on the radio nearby. Kris tries to distract me while I’m writing this page and enjoying the peace, feeling quite relaxed with the sun, the sand, the ocean and music in the air. 

The next day we hit Santa Barbara a little further north up the Pacific coast. The town had a genteel Spanish feel, a place where I think I could possibly live. Some grocery shopping and then trouble finding a campsite that had room for us, we finally land upon Oceano Memorial Park, just north of Santa Monica where the showers cost a quarter and we are squashed into a small patch for the night. We are now officially locked onto Highway 1 which clings to the ocean and will take us north to San Francisco in a few days. 

Heading north up the Pacific Coast

San Luis Obispo*, a little further up the coast on Highway 1 was our next port of call. The dense sea fog had lifted at about 9am and my diary tells me that we stopped for a breakfast of doughnuts (how things have changed?). We set off on Highway 1 towards Big Sur, a place we had all heard off, we passed the Hearst Castle at San Simeon, where tourists queue to gape. For my part I could only think of Orson Welles’ portrayal of Citizen Kane. The first campground we tried was full so we ventured onto a place called Fernwood where for $6 we had a pitch for the night. 

The next morning as we drove over a bridge disaster struck and the muffler (exhaust pipe) snapped in two. Some hasty temporary roadside repairs allowed us to continue for the time being. The wild region called Big Sur called us and we spent a couple of days in the area, swimming in some wild seas, being buffered by high winds and enjoying the spectacular scenery. Kelp seaweed was lying about in abundance too. We enjoyed camping among the California redwoods not far from the coast, so much so that we booked in for another night there. There was a stream near the campsite we could dip into. I was enjoying reading a sci fi novel by Robert Heinleim at the time, was it ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ I wonder? We made a meal that night of bulgur wheat and garbanzos washed down with a cheap Californian pink chablis – (gut-rot it says here). I watched happy people getting high on square dancing nearby but felt sick to my stomach from the lousy wine. 

Thursday 26^th August out last full day on the road before reaching our final destination. We drove to the town of Monterey with what was left of the muffler making noises it shouldn’t have. There was a Jimi Hendrix soundtrack playing in the car which seemed fitting at the time. Monterey appeared to be a small, neat town, somewhere that we could have settled in for a while, but no, we had to first find the Midas Muffler Shop where we had two pipes fitted and the box replaced for a princely $45. For the first time on this whole trip we visited a McDonalds for breakfast, as a vegetarian back then it wasn’t always easy to find things to eat in the world of fast foods. I didn’t visited another one for many, many years. 

We picked up some shopping in the town and bought some groceries and then drove onto Castroville, which proudly proclaimed itself as “The Artichoke Capital of the World” where you could buy 50 small globe artichokes for just one dollar and cauliflowers at 9 cents each. We eventually reached Sunset State Beach, near Watsonville, for our last night of camping on this trip and let ourselves get washed by the gentle white waves and felt satisfied. We watched the sunset near to Santa Cruz with a pervasive end of the journey feeling about us. 

This was now Friday 27^th August and we were just a mere 70 miles from the end of our journey. We took a punt and decided to visit the Mystery Spot, in amongst the redwoods near Santa Cruz, which proclaimed itself as a place where gravity holds no bounds. Was it a site of a meteorite landing way back, was it a vortex, a strange gravitational force field or possibly an elaborate hoax? We witnessed what appeared to be a golf ball rolling up a plank, trees growing in an anti clockwise direction and an area where there appeared to be a different gravitational pull. Things were definitely out of kilter here. For only $1.50 entrance even it was a hoax it wasn’t that hard to swallow and it was quite an entertaining visit. We left and headed for the city by the bay, reaching halfway to the stars…

* San Luis Obispo features again later in my story from 1978 when I was part of a campaign of activists from Northern California and elsewhere determined to stop the building of a nuclear power station at a place called Diablo Canyon, SLO being the nearest town. The objection was based on the fact that there is an earthquake fault line running right through Diablo Canyon, an off shoot of the San Andreas Fault. At this demo I was nearly arrested in a sit down protest and thereby narrowly avoided being deported as an alien. I remember Jackson Browne turning up and singing a few songs at the event too. The power station got built in the end despite a few delays, such was the lobbying power of Pacific, Gas and Electric. 

Welcome to the city!

Our silver Chevy rattled along Highway 1 past Half Moon Bay, Pacifica and we eventually entered the suburbs of Daly City and the southern approaches to the city. There was signs appearing for the 49 Mile Drive, I wondered at the time what it was. (I drove the whole route later). We excitedly drove right into the centre of downtown San Francisco and headed for the Main Post Office somewhere on or off Market Street, narrowly avoiding the suddenly confusing input of trams, cable cars and buses. We collected a few forwarded letters there from family in the UK. I learnt that my theatrical Uncle Alfred had died in Manchester sometime over the summer. 

There was that famous San Francisco fog creeping over the hills from the Pacific too. We had a packed lunch of sandwiches and root beer in a parking lot, I don’t remember why, maybe it was to gather our thoughts. The first task was to seek out Enid, an old college friend of Kris’s from Brockport, NY. We found her eventually and spent an hour or two chatting. Enid was a bit pessimistic about the prospect of us finding jobs in the city, but did offer some friendly advice. Another acquaintance from Kris’s past, Carol Thompson, kindly offered to put the four of us up for a couple of nights, she lived in the Inner Mission district and was most hospitable. 

Our first night we trekked over by bus to Chinatown to a cinema showing a double bill for a dollar, this fitted our budget. Can’t believe it now but we watched Spartacus and The Royal Hunt of the Sun that night. We walked over into North Beach, that haunt of beat poets afterwards for a bite to eat and a coffee and a quick look at Little Italy. I began to feel like I had arrived in a city that was like nowhere else in the USA. There was such a heady mix of people and cultures all in one place. We returned to Carol’s apartment and crashed. 

The next day, Saturday, we were directed towards a performance of the famous San Francisco Mime Troupe in nearby Dolores Park. A famous agitprop political troupe, they had been around since the late 60s. This performance was about the US involvement in the Spanish American War over independence for Cuba in 1898 and featured Teddy Roosevelt and miners. A theatrical political history lesson. 

On the Sunday we all went for a long drive in the Chevy around the area and drove over the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time with the seasonal fog rolling in and went into Sausalito in Marin County and ended up going through Richmond, Oakland and Berkeley, returning via the Bay Bridge. I remember being impressed by the natural beauty of the Bay Area. I was happy that we had decided to make a home there for the time being. 

On the Monday we drove Jane and Chris to the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge and said goodbye to them as they started to hitchhike the long road back to New York and the UK, they took a more northern and direct route this time. They were successful, but I can’t remember how long it took them to do it. 

At this point the road trip was essentially over, the four of us had spent an awfully long time, some six thousand miles over six weeks, squashed in together in our two door Chevy. Relations were a bit strained at times, harsh words were spoken from time to time, but I recall that we tried to get along. But I think all parties were happy to reach the end of the road and go our separate ways. 

I saw my sister Jane and Chris again the next summer in the UK on a short summer visit. Jane had an art studio in Bristol and Chris was a mobile DJ, who later on became the continuity DJ on the main stage at Glastonbury – and still is! Kris and I lasted another two years before an acrimonious break up and after leaving the country she divorced me and we never met again. 

One of the reasons I was drawn to this city was that several years before I heard and got into the song ‘San Franciscan Nights’ by Eric Burdon and the Animals. I later discovered that there was no such thing as a warm San Franciscan night. But I had joined the University of Life and this was the place to find myself. Little did I know that I would be there for nearly four years.