Hippie Road Trip; part three

After four days in New York City, Kiva and I were ready to head back to Iowa and the hippie farm. My first visit to New York was complete, I had seen an off Broadway play, I had walked around Central Park and Times Square, and I even rode the subway to Harlem, walked around, got scared and left. In the morning we set out across the bridge into New Jersey, and no matter how many times Mark tells me how nice it is, to me Jersey looked awful. After New Jersey it was Pennsylvania, which at least got more interesting as we entered the mountains. Again, we traded off driving and we were making good time, though my VW bus seemed to be laboring a bit every time we had to climb one of those mountains.

There is one thing you should know about me and automobiles when I was young, I didn't maintain them very well. I never checked the oil until I started hearing the lifters clacking, and even after I checked the oil it never occurred to me that it shouldn't be black on the dipstick. I cannot recall ever changing the oil in a car until 1974, when my boss made me get the oil changed on the company van.

On a mountain outside of State College, Pennsylvania, while I was sleeping in the back and Kiva was driving, a loud explosion came from the rear of the van. Slowly the van rolled to a stop while Kiva and I tried desperately to restart the thing. Nothing doing, we had blown the engine, and we were going nowhere. It took all of our money just to get it towed into town, and in the end I sold my beloved hippie van to the local VW mechanic for $100 and hitch-hiked back to Iowa.

Nowadays I check my oil and change it regularly. I never travel to another city without a hotel room booked in advance, much less sleep on the floor. And I treat my Capital One card with the respect it deserves, for without it I'm really just one disaster away from my hippie days.