Does anyone remember travel pre-cell pre-internet,?

[teach1st]

20. Late 60s, early 70s

Drove from Florida to the west coast a few times in a VW bug. Relied on maps and verbal directions from locals. Found the Rainbow Festival in Granby. Found the surf spots we wanted to find, and found the house in Berkeley.

Started hitching solo to the west coast from Florida with less than $20 in my frayed patch-jeans pocket, no maps, no real goal. Got a ride through Colorado with some freaks from Kansas in a van packed full of shit weed. After California, I ended up in New England and finally in NJ for an extended stay. Got back to Florida with more money than I started with, thanks to giving strangers and a few small-town police sheriffs who let me stay as a guest in their jails (no arrest, just let me crash), complete, at one Georgia station, with a wonderful southern breakfast like I was in an Andy Griffith show ("Son, you should cut your hair...people 'round here don't cotton to the hippie look" ) .

I got lost, I got waylaid, I got betrayed. I stayed in one spot in Reno for eight hours before getting a ride, I slept in the woods in the driving rain. But I went with the flow and the flow usually met met my needs. Things have certainly changed.