During May, 1968, I hitchhiked down the California coast from San Francisco to Santa Barbara. I carried a notebook and wrote as I traveled. Here are some excerpts from that journey.

Friday, May 10, 1968, 4:10 p.m.
Golden fields, clear sky, small towns, spaciousness, straight highway, uncrowded, unhurried, roadside canals, two sand dollars and a rock with holes in it on the dashboard. Green fields, distant mountains, passing a faded gray barn. Thousands of telephone poles reaching ahead into infinity. Empty cattle cars, fields filled with water like Chinese rice fields, small orange airplane far out above the plains. Emptiness and tranquility.

Sketchbook cover red, wispy, fluttering, floating away. An armadillo going down the road into the distant mountains across the plain with a cloud in the sky. 7:28 p.m. The sun's bottom edge touches the mountaintop.

May 11. With the key behind the post, Mike unlocks the three locks on the gate barring the road. It's about midnight. Up and up and up a winding bumpy sandy road, around mountains. We arrive. There is a trailer, a horse, several shacks and buildings, cars, tents, domes, loudly barking dogs, and chickens. We are on a mountaintop overlooking mountains and valleys. Inside the main house we meet a man named Chance, who offers us coffee and rice. Later, outside, dogs are sleeping on couches and armchairs at the edge of the cliff. Inside one of the domes, made from cinder blocks and cloth, a pig is sleeping. We play with the pig awhile, then trot off down the path, across a gap to another peak, roll out our ground cloths and sleeping bags and fall asleep beneath an overcast sky.

May 12, morning. The view of the valley: a desert plain, overcast sky, sounds of crickets, birds, distant dogs and traffic, fog-covered mountains reaching up into vague, strange, mystic disappearance. On the peak with the domes a figure climbs down swiftly in the cool morning air. A rooster crows. The sun peeks out once and vanishes again into nothingness.

May 13, morning. The sky is clearing, clouds melting away or drifting on south; sun's out. Hot already, with a cool breeze. Off to the southeast, as seen from the freeway ramp, the view looks like a countryside mural. In the far background, misty mountains, clouds above. In the middle distance, dark green bush-clotted hills, tall pine and palm trees and squat bushy trees. A cluster of three red barns, two white with green roof houses. Two black horses stand dozing in a golden field. A row of leafy trees, cows under a tree, a small airplane landing in the distance. A bird flies out of the picture towards me!