Chapter 1

BRECKENRIDGE

I stared at the red numbers on the clock, the two dots in the middle pulsed as if it had a beating heart.  There was no chance of falling asleep and in the rare chance I even were, what’s thirty more minutes going to do anyway?  It was 4:05 in the morning and I had a big day ahead of me, a day setting in action a four month experience that would eventually leave me on a highway in Oregon, half naked and half ripped off my mind on LSD bleeding onto the side mirror of somebodies vehicle.  I was too excited to sleep and so stared into the quiet dark thinking of how i got here.  

 I couldn’t tell you why I choose to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, but what i could tell you is that I had an unassumingly white, rectangular piece of paper soaked in Lysergic Acid Diethylamide disguised as a book mark on the bed side table next to the clock.  Why?  Because the previous winter, after work, I would catch the 21:07 Boreas Pass bus, prop myself down in the backseat and let 90’s techno blast through my headphones while fantasizing about the “what could be’s” lying on the horizon.  Daydreaming of running with the bulls in Pamplona, eating a drooping slice of pizza on the streets of Napoli,  working at a panda bear refugee in China, pounding a foamy stein of beer at Oktoberfest or dancing around a fire singing kumbaya on some tropical farm with a group of modern day hippies.  Experiencing these day dreams would induce within me a buzz similar to a strong opiate high, fueling my excitement for the open road before me.  

What i didn’t know then, was that it wasn’t the events themselves that lit me up, but rather was who I became inside them.  In those daydreams, i was fully myself, even the parts I was not yet aware of, unbothered by fear, judgement or failure, I said what I felt like saying and did what i felt like doing, regardless of the situation or who was watching.  Until one day, as I stared out at the snow laden pine trees passing by, the strong urge to take LSD came to me, as if the me that i wanted to be, had been watching me daydream and decided to suggest one of the pathways i could take that would lead me there.  I had only taken it one time at a new years eve party with friends and had no clue what a powerful drug it was nor the places it could take you within yourself.   But something or someone inside me, coming from a calm and certain place seemed to have a clue.

I knew a guy and asked him for a strip, a slang word, depending on who you’re talk to, meaning ten hits.  However he wasn't just A guy, he was THE guy and a strip to A guy vs a strip to THE guy are two totally different things.   

“Want to meet for some beers?” he asked.

I said sure.

 We sat at a round table on tall chairs where my feet dangled uncomfortably as if i were a child.  I swang them with the jittery energy of anticipation, ignorance and physical discomfort.  So we drank.  He talked.  I more or less nodded.  Me, mr. ignoramus, a wide-eyed rookie about to be called up to the big leagues, wondering why we are sitting at a table and not just exchanging goods.  Him, calculating and clocking my every move, inspecting me like giving a bb gun to a toddler for the first time.  Scanning for something, perhaps a twinge of mental instability, fear, or twitch of neuroticism.  Or maybe he was indulging, enjoying the ritual of handing over a ticket to visit a place no one returns from.  

Eventually, we wandered out to his car, the sharp crisp of a high altitude night around us.  He handed me the strip. 

“here ya go mannn, 100 hits”

I sat there trying to look like i asked for 100 does instead of 10 while Dr. Thompson hissed in my ear. “ Buy the ticket, take the ride…”