Back in the 1960s and 70s it was fairly safe and easy to hitchhike. I used to do it quite often. Got picked up by a lot of hippies and had some cool adventures. The two most memorable journeys for me were in 1973 and 1977. On the first one, I hitched from Eureka, CA to New York in about ten days. From there took a Freddie Laker airline flight that stopped in Iceland for refueling, then landed in Luxembourg. Bummed around Europe for six great months before my money ran out and headed home again. Had about $20 in my pocket when I started hitching west from NY. In Pennsylvania, I got picked up by an army medic who was being transferred from the east coast to the west coast. He had quite a bag of goodies with him. We alternated driving and zoomed across the country. We split in Salt Lake City as he was heading toward L.A. and I to northern California. Arrived back in Eureka the next day. All told, I made it from one coast to the other in three and a half days. That must be some kind of hitching record. In 1977, I was in France trying to be a starving writer like Hemingway or Henry Miller. Made friends with an Afghan and an Iranian. They invited me back to their countries. A lot of hippies were heading to India back then. I had wonderful experiences for the next year on the road through Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. It was a peaceful time, but unfortunately the Iranian revolution happened a year and a half later, then the Afghan-Soviet war, then the Iraq-Iran war. I still have fond memories of those journeys and have written a couple novels based on them. I think it would be interesting if some of the members on the Old Hippies forum shared some of their "road" stories. Got any to share?
yeh, cool, I wuz in an on the Katmanduh trail frum 1964 to 1972, wow ow, am still on the road gettin on an closer to it. see this? by Seth Sherwood, (09 Apr 2006) New York Times India AS a crimson sun sets over the Arabian Sea behind her, the British singer Helen Jones leaps onto the stage of the oceanside Cafe Looda, grabs the microphone and unleashes a fiery anthem to the crowd amassed under the thatched roof of the open-air bar. "There ain't nothing like this in the real world!" she sing-shouts, flinging her strawberry-blond hair as an Indian-British-Iranian backing band called Sattva ( Sanskrit for "righteousness" ) kicks out a wailing funk jam. The beer-drinking throng, which appears to include European rock chicks with nose rings, goateed Israeli beatniks, Australian Green Party voters and a miscellaneous coterie of hipster backpackers in every imaginable type of sandal, nods in rhythm as the music resounds along Anjuna Beach. "Come to Goa! Change your mind! Change your way!" There ain't nothing like this in the real world. Come to Goa. Change your mind. Change your way. It's hard to imagine a better jingle for this sandy strip of India's western coast, a venerable Catholic-Hindu enclave where American hippies came to turn on, tune in and drop out in the late 1960's, and where globe-trotting spiritual seekers, party kids, flag-wavers of the counterculture and refugees from the real world have fled ever since. It's a place where the palm trees bear a strange fruit --fliers for crystal therapy, Ayurvedic healing and rave parties -- and every road seems to lead to an organic restaurant or massage clinic. At the yoga centers, postures are manipulated by top Indian and international instructors. In clubs, where trance music is the favored genre, D.J.'s carrying myriad passports provide the mix. Bodies receive needle-inked adornments at skin-art parlors; minds seek enlightenment, or at least expansion, at many meditation clinics. Foreigners have flocked to tiny Goa -- whose statewide population of 1.4 million is about one-tenth that of Mumbai, 300 miles north -- ever since the Portuguese established a Spice Route colony there in the 1500's. The port flourished into one of Asia's most splendid cities before disease, vice and trade competition sank its fortunes. ( Its remains are still visible in Old Goa, a Unesco World Heritage Site near the current state capital, Panjim. ) The Indian Army seized Goa from Portugal in 1961. But new colonists, the Haight-Ashbury crowd, soon showed up. Seduced by the same landscapes that appeared in Portuguese spyglasses centuries earlier -- untouristed beaches, green jungle, dramatic cliffs -- the former flower children traveled overland on "magic buses" from Europe and created in northern Goa a free-spirited, budget-friendly new world among the laid-back native Goans. The village of Anjuna became its wildly spinning center, with the quieter communities of Arambol and Vagator emerging as hemp-clad satellites. Since then, each generation of global nomads has carved its niche: New Age devotees of the 1980's; global ravers and electromusic pioneers of the 1990's ( who initiated a tradition of all-night beach parties and made Goa trance music a worldwide phenomenon ); and the yogaphiles and Burning Man groupies of today. The result is the globe's most enduring and constantly adapting tropical getaway for alternative living. When the summer monsoon blows past, the world's fringes unite. "Goa is a paradise that is accessible to one and all, in true Indian style: age, shape, color, size, planet," said Deepti Datt, a filmmaker who splits her time between Goa, Bombay and Southern California. Her restaurant and D.J. bar, Axirvaad ( Sanskrit for "blessing" ), was long a legend for its "lounge groove space temple" nights. ( The restaurant, temporarily closed, will relocate in the Goan village of Tiracol next year. ) Goa, she goes on, "is a happy playground for grown-ups." On a Wednesday in November, a chain of minivan taxis and autorickshaws is disgorging bodies into Goa's most celebrated playground, the weekly Anjuna flea market. Started decades ago by Anjuna's hippie community ( for whom it was a vital form of income ), the humble local enterprise has mushroomed into a sprawling international affair. Many of the hundreds of closely packed stalls are now run by vociferous sari-clad Indian women in jingling jewelry, but the carnivalesque atmosphere has multiplied. "Look at my shop! Look at my shop!" they beckon, all smiles. "Sir! Sir! Sir! Sir! Sir!" Navigating the come-ons is the latest wave of Anjuna's antiestablishment arrivals, from ponytailed Finnish rockers to cornrowed Iranian girls. Mixed within the throng is another curious species: middle-aged European package tourists. ( The towns of Baga and Calangute, just south of Anjuna, have exploded into an Indian Cancun in recent years, troubling their northern neighbors. ) Stalls burst with carved Hindu deities, richly colored textiles and bins of pungent saffron and coriander. Indian women with syringes provide swirly henna tattoos. Indian men armed with thin sticks remove ear wax. A white-bearded Australian man passes out fliers for Reiki healing. "It's your pathway to God," he says. Byzantium, William Butler Yeats famously said, was no place for old men. The market, with its hawkers proposing every conceivable good and service, is no place for weak men. He who balks at saying no risks emerging from the fray wearing pashmina scarves, sporting sequined slippers, smoking from a hookah and drinking from a coconut while trying to avoid being checkmated on a tiny sandlewood board held by a solicitous Indian salesman yelling, "Chess, Boss!? Chess, Boss!?" "This guy's been following us for three hours," says a tattooed 20-something Briton named Gareth Harrison, a five-time visitor to Goa, as he haggles for 20 wooden bracelets with an assertive Indian boy. The wails of snake-charmers' horns mingle with the smells of cow manure and burning incense. Finally, Mr. Harrison gets his price: 50 rupees, about $1.10, at 22 cents to the rupee. "We started at 500," he says. Sipping cold drinks at a makeshift cafe, a 30-ish couple from Slovenia, Polona Volf and her boyfriend, Bostjan Mohar, survey the pageant. "We wanted to go to Bali," says Mr. Mohar, a special-ed teacher in a tank top and shorts. "But we saw a documentary called 'Last Hippie Standing,' so we changed our plans." As midnight approaches, the $5-a-night guesthouses empty and the sloping roads leading to the Paradiso nightclub fill with rented motorcycles and scooters. ( Any innkeeper can arrange one with a phone call. ) Their small headlamps appear from around curves, swerving through the blackness like fireflies as they pass low-lighted seafood shacks and Goan curry joints along the dark seaside roads. A beacon in the sky explains the heavy traffic: a full moon. Decades ago, Goa's hippie settlers would hold beach parties on full moon nights. When the rave generation showed up, it appropriated and expanded the ritual, orchestrating D.J.-fueled blowouts in specially designated outdoor expanses like the famous Disco Valley. The tradition has waned, though full-on outdoor raves still occur, generally in December and January. Meanwhile, clubs like Paradiso and Nine Bar pick up the slack. Constructed of mud and perched on a cliff overlooking the sea, Paradiso's vast three-tiered space has a grottolike prehistoric feel, complete with hobbit-worthy nooks. A large, blue-lighted statue of Shiva shines in a corner, his many arms extended as he dances his cosmic dance. Under the moon's and Shiva's glow, a Lollapalooza-looking crowd dances to the distinctive, deafening explosions of Goa trance music. Underpinned by a rapid-fire drumbeat and punishing basslines, the many layers of dark, minor-key synthesizers open cyclonic swells of sound. Strange snippets of speech, scarcely recognizable, float across the mix and fade. Developed in the still-insular Goa of the 1980's, the scene's signature sound was intended as a digital-age descendant of tribal drumming, shamanistic ritual and druggy psychedelia. By the 90's, it began to catch the ear of some top international D.J.'s, notably the founder of Perfecto Records, Paul Oakenfold. Those impresarios' production skills and clout did much to transport Goa trance onto the international club circuit. Today, Goa trance parties and CD mixes abound worldwide. For the far-flung disciples of Goa trance, a journey to Anjuna is a bit like a Christian pilgrim's trip to Bethlehem. "I've been dreaming about coming here since I was 14," says Omri Lauter, a shaggy-haired unshaven Jerusalem native and trance music fan who looks to be around 25. The swirling crowds surround his cross-legged perch on the ground. "This is like an Eden." "The only place I can compare it to is Ibiza," says the club's owner, Nandan Kudchadkar. He explains that many of the D.J.'s he invites, who come primarily from London, Scandinavia, Russia, Japan and Israel, try out their newest trance mixes here before recording them or bringing them to other sites worldwide. Anjuna's discriminating clubbers, he goes on, need constant novelty. "You can't repeat a track here for 15 days or people will shout and yell." Come daylight, Goa's dedication to partying is matched by its dedication to the healing arts, the yang to the night's yin. At Purple Valley yoga center, rejuvenation might take the form of ashtanga poses or vinyasa flow exercises, two of the daily courses offered. The leading name on Goa's yoga circuit, the center has brought in pretzel-limbed luminaries from the globe's four corners, including the sometime teacher of Madonna and Sting, Danny Paradise. But Goa's most authentic spiritual experiences require a taxi ride into the past. Snaking south into the lush Goan countryside, the cracked asphalt roads out of Anjuna pass scenes of daily Indian life that seem a world away from the Birkenstock-trod paths behind: fires burning amid roadside shanties; little boys playing cricket in an overgrown field; elderly Hindu women walking barefoot with baskets on their heads; ancient peepul and banyan trees. The succession flickers quickly past the half-lowered window like film images carried by the warm breeze. The heads seem to bow especially low upon entering the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa, the ghost town of Baroque edifices that was once the splendid seat of Portugal's Indian trade colony. The reason for their reverence lies in a deep alcove, where a fabulously wrought silver casket holds the remains of the most famous Western spiritual seeker ever to reach Goa's shores: St. Francis Xavier. Dispatched on a missionary voyage to the East in 1541, St. Francis, a Spanish-born Jesuit, stepped off a ship the next year and found himself in a prosperous international metropolis larger than London. As one French traveler observed, Goa's boulevards were lined with "goldsmiths and bankers, as well as the richest and best merchants and artisans." St. Francis journeyed all over the East, returning frequently to Goa before his death in China in 1552. His body was taken to Goa two years later. Today, Baroque churches, convents and cathedrals testify to the former splendor. Whitewashed, the spectral relics stand out against the green grassy expanses and encroaching jungle like a Catholic version of the Angkor temple complex. A few miles farther south, outside the tiny village of Priol, the faith changes from Christian to Hindu. Wearing colorful saris and Madras shirts, Indian travelers carrying wreaths of orange flowers stream into the 17th-century Shri Manguesh temple and lay down their offerings. The air hangs with incense and quiet muttering. Old women selling bananas work the crowds outside. According to legend, Shiva --Hinduism's supreme creator and destroyer -- once played a game of dice against his wife, Parvati, and lost everything. Dejected and unburdened of his worldly things, he did what many have done since: he took refuge in Goa, on the spot of this very temple. Parvati eventually followed and beseeched him to return. He agreed, and they were reunited. Shiva, you might say, came to Goa, changed his mind, then changed his ways. When to Go The season surrounding the summer monsoon, basically November to May, is the best time to visit Goa. The week between Christmas and New Year's is very popular -- especially for the Anjuna rave scene -- and hotel rates typically double or even triple. A visa, obtained in advance, is required for United States citizens. Getting There There are no direct flights from the United States to Goa. The best option is to fly to Mumbai and get a connecting flight to Dabolim Airport in Goa. Air India was offering round-trip fares from Kennedy Airport in New York to Mumbai for $1,041, including taxes and fees, for this month. Several discount Indian airlines operate between Mumbai and Goa, including Air Deccan ( www.airdeccan.net ), Spicejet ( www.spicejet.com ) and Jet Airways ( www.jetairways.com ). Getting Around Hiring a prepaid taxi at Dabolim Airport ( located in the city of Vasco da Gama ) is the easiest way to reach Calangute, Baga and Anjuna, which are about 45 minutes north. The taxi counter ( 0832-254-1235 ) is just outside the baggage claim area and a bit to the left, on a traffic island. Expect to pay 640 rupees ( $14.35, at 50 rupees to the dollar ) to these destinations. As for addresses, most hotels, restaurants and shops don't have numbered street addresses as such, so always carry the most detailed map you can find. Taxi drivers can often ( but not always ) find places with only a name and a village. Where to Stay Palacete Rodrigues, Mazal Vaddo, Anjuna, 91-832-227-3358. A centuries-old Portuguese mansion transformed into a guesthouse. A little dilapidated, but the staff is friendly. Doubles from 850 rupees. The lone air-conditioned room, a twin, is 950 rupees a night. Guru Guesthouse, Anjuna Beach, 91-832-227-3319. Backpackers, bohemians and barflies will like this no-frills dirt-cheap hotel, which has a meditation area and an adjacent bar with sublime views of the Arabian Sea. Rooms from 250 rupees. Pousada Tauma, Porba Vaddo, Calangute, 91-832-227-9061, www.pousada-tauma.com. This cluster of red templelike stone buildings is the fanciest boutique hotel in the Baga-Calangute strip. Guests can dip in the sprawling pool, undergo ancient ayurvedic treatments in the spa and dine on tasty local Goan cuisine in the highly regarded Copper Pot restaurant. Standard rooms cost 130 euros ( $159 at $1.23 to the euro ) to 370 euros a night ( $453 ) depending on the season. Where to Eat Martha's Breakfast, 907, Monteiro Vaddo, Anjuna, 91-832-227-3365, is a shady patio serving robust and cheap meals that almost make taking your morning antimalaria drugs a pleasure. Offerings include American pancakes ( 65 rupees ), banana porridge ( 45 rupees ) and fruit lassis ( from 35 rupees ). Hanuman Bar and Restaurant, North Anjuna Beach, 91-832-309-0442. The eclectic menu at this laid-back beach restaurant includes Indian, Chinese and even Israeli dishes. A meal for two, with drinks, will rarely run more than 400 rupees. Britto's, Baga Beach, Bardez, Goa, 91-832-227-7331. A very mellow oceanside restaurant with a lovely view of the sea serves everything from full English breakfasts ( 180 rupees ) to Indian curries and tikkas ( 80 to 140 rupees ) to fresh seafood ( 300 to 700 rupees ), notably pomfret, kingfish and tiger prawns ( from 300 to 700 rupees ). Sublime Bistro, Baga River, 91-982-248-4051, showcases the skills of its chef and co-owner, Chris Agha Bee, who trained at the Culinary Institute of America. A daily shopper for produce at the markets in Mapusa and Calangute, he serves up dishes like crab-prawn cakes and grilled marlin on lentils in mustard sauce. A three-course meal for two costs around 1,200 rupees. Where to Party Paradiso, North Anjuna Beach. Cover charge is 200 rupees. Tito's, Tito's Lane, Baga, 91-832-227-9895. Cover charge, 300 rupees. Mambo's, Tito's Lane, Baga, 91-832-227-9895. Cover charge, 200 to 300 rupees.
Back in the 70's and 80's, I worked in the oilfield in New Mexico. We'd stay at a motel in this town smaller than most peoples living room. Saturday and Sunday we'd have nothing to do, so we'd hitch. The next town of any size was about 25 miles away with nothing in between. To get a ride we'd carry a gas can and tell the people that we were going back to our car in the next town. (don't know why they didn't ask if next town had a gas station) We'd always get rides. Funny, it worked going there or back. Met some really nice people. A guy I worked with rode in the rodeos on the weekends. He'd use the gas can trick to hitch all over the state.
wandering_okie, your story takes me back. I also worked on some oilrigs in the Gulf of Mexico in 1980-81, then in a big camp in Wyoming (nearest town was Evanston, about an hour away from the camp) where about 1,000 laborers were building a refinery. I worked in the kitchen. It was like living a prison existence, but you could save up some good money fairly quickly and hit the road again. I remember a lot of guys had big dreams for what they were going to do with their money, but the majority of them ended up spending the money on booze and drugs and women.
Shadows, we were "completing" wells for Amoco. They paid for everything. We were working long hours, but it sure beat picking cantelopes. I didn't care much about money back in those days, so I pretty much smoked it up. Travelling around meant more than having money I guess.
Hey Shadows, maybe sometime we ought to start a thread about crazy work we've done. I got some "tales" brother. hiphillbilly always has some good stories too.
wandering_okie, that sounds like a great idea. I'd love to read some of those stories. Back in my own wandering days, I put in time as a millhand (pulling greenchain), construction laborer, stevedore, mailman, pot and pan washer, baker, saute cook, and oilrig steward, among other things.
Me and a girl hitched a ride from St.augustine Fla to NYC in an orange-juice tanker 1/2 full and when the truck stopped the juice would flow to the front and make the truck "hop". We stayed at her gay friends house in Brooklyn while I looked for a job. She went back to England and i shipped off to the Poconos to work in a Jewish garment- union's vacation resort.
Now this is waaaay cool. A kindered spirit at last!!!! Two weeks after I graduated from High School ('70) in Athens I was traveling deck class on a Turkish freighter to Barcelona on my way to Madrid to see this girl I thought was my future. I shared a room down in the bilges with twenty other poor vagabonds and made stops in Napoli and Marseille. Got to Madrid and was told her future in college didn't include me, so I went to the Embassy, registered for the draft (turned 18 the day after graduation), and started thumbing. Spent four months bouncing from one country to another with no direction or purpose. Slept on benches, along side the road, in store fronts, in stairwells, building attics, train station lobbys, anywhere. When I had started off from Athens I had $70 in my jeans, a pack, sleeping bag and an old British Army jacket that was coat and blanket. I had left in a rush and a huff after an arguement with my Dad about declaring myself as a conscientious objector (ironic since I ended up in the Navy and was involved with Viet Nam, Lebanon, Libya and Bosnia). Got thrown out of some places and searched by the police twice, met some very generous people and lived on bullion soup and crackers heated on a little sterno stove (ya wanna lose weight?). Some people who gave me rides also bought me meals and one trucker let me use his cab bed. Thumbed all over Europe and ended up without a dime back in Athens after living for three days on a tin of corned beef I had bought in Salzburg with my last coins. Lived in Athens another year and thumbed all over the place, but it was very normal for people to do that there. The rides I had gotten went from pretty girls in sports cars to trucks to mercedes to a drunk in Switzerland that scared the crap out of me! Except for the drunk, I never had even a hint of a hassle. Quite the opposite. Most people were curious, helpful and generous. I guess I looked like I could have used it. I would think twice nowdays of thumbing in Europe but would still do it, and never even think of thumbin' in the states. That trip had a great impact on me and I learned some life lessons from it that I still use today. One very impressive aspect of the trip has a direct impact on what this forum is all about. The other travelers I met traveling around at that time were the very people this website pays homage to. They were the seekers, the restless souls and adventurers who sought a greater meaning to life and took to the worlds roads to find it, study it and embrace it. It was the communicating and sharing of everything with these people; thoughts, ideals, feelings, fears, philosophies and confidence that instilled in me an absolute lust for life and even as I sit here writing this, I am still filled with the awe of life, this world and what I want to experience of it. Last fall the wife and I and her girlfriend friend spent three weeks backpacking around China. I insisted on a backpacking trip exactly because of my experience in '70. I learned you have to get out into it in order to truly experience it and make it yours. You can admire a river from the bridge, but you'll never know of it's refreshing coolness, it's relaxing feel, it's satisfying taste, it's power or it's affect on your spirit as it works on the things just memtioned...unless you get in. Hey, thanks for dredging up some pleasant memories. I know it's an old thread and no one will read it...but I just had to write! Safe travels my friend.
Shadows-- I enjoyed your tales, but remember this: Hemingway was never a "starving" wanna-be writer in his Paris days. He worked as a sometimes stringer for, I think, The Toronto Sun and the International Tribune. Plus, he always married money. He just thought that it would be nice if you felt so. Henry Miller, with whom I corresponded with in the late '70's before he went blind and died (yes, I saved the postcards and letters; my children can sell them if they wish),was truly a "starving artist". And, a genius-- what he said about the establishment in the 30's is just as valid today. Plus, he's funny-- something Ernie was never accused of. Also, Shadows-- You said the oil-field riggers and roustabouts mainly spent their big pay-checks on booze, drugs and women. How did they waste the rest? Signed, an ex-pipeliner, THUDLY.
----Your trip sounds very much like mine and my partners-We did the Europe bummin around thing in 1970-I was 20-We did like you-we took a Drive Away car from San Jose to New York ' spent the night in a Greenwich Village crash pad then caught the same airline as you did-only difference was the name' which they probably changed-it went from New York to Iceland then to Luxumberg-same as you!--Then the airline was called Icelantic Airlines-the tickets were 170.00 round trip-it was prop and no frills-to say the least-not even peanuts-If I remember right it took around 17 hours from Iceland to Luxemberg--does that sound right?--We stayed over there for all of 1970 went to Crete-Greece -Joni Mitchell was there camped out in some caves with her boyfriend-She wrote the album For You Blue while she was there--thats the album where she talks about being in Europe and getting her stuff ripped off by her boyfriend-what an idiot!--Rome was great-We played music there for 6 months-We smuggled acid from Amsterdam to Rome --strong paper blotter-We were at the Isle Of Wight festival-slept in paper sleeping bags in the mud-woke up with the sounds of Moody Blues doing Tuesday Afternoon-real nice--thats when Americans were treated good and people liked us-Would'nt go there now-Thanks George!
Not to break your memory-bubble, RobSpace, but if I ever hear that whining, lame song, "Tuesday Afternoon" by that jive-ass collection of '60-era pot-suckers AKA THE MOODY BLUES, I will dynamite the radio station's broadcasting tower and sell the remaining scrap to Al-Aquida to re-melt into catfish sinkers. Have we no taste?
Been offline for quite a spell, but good to see some people have kept this thread alive. Thudly, I remember some of the rig workers spent good bucks on pickup trucks, motorcycles, and other cars with big engines. More than a few also had to use their money to post bail. The money I saved went toward heading west to Portland, Oregon. When that money ran out, I worked near Evanstan, Wyoming at a remote oil camp and used those savings to make it to Maui, Hawaii with good intentions to finish a novel. I think I wrote a total of three letters in the six months it took to blow that money there. Used the last of the money to buy a one-way ticket to Japan (this was in '83). Been here since. Shadows P.S. Long ago my favorite Henry Miller book was "The Colossus of Maroussi."
Yup, that's the same flight. My trip was in '73 and the airline was still called Icelandic Airlines. I think Freddie Laker was the owner. Shadows
Hey Thudly-What seems to be the nature of your problem-I don't give a shit what music you like or don't like-so why in the hell would you go out of your way to piss me off-real dumb-get a clue brother-put a cork in that bottle and try a new attitude adjustment-Your negative -whining posts are just plain depressing-I have a feeling you were never involved with much of anything in the 60s=the way you put people down=You say your a Republican -my question is this-Why would anybody that supports Bush and his foreign policies even be posting here-makes no sense-I'm sure there are plenty of pro Bush sites out there-check em out-ps-you complain that noone responds to your posts-well-think about it!Attitude is everything-
Hiching back from colorado in about 74 and got a ride in a semi-dump truck out in western Kansas. As I climbed in the cab the driver shoved the gas pedal to the floor and never let up until we were doing over a ninety miles an hour on what was little more than a poorly paved two lane goat path. There were no shoulders on the road, deep sandy ditches on each side and he just about put every car that we passed in the ditch as he went by. It was a shit-chilling ride all the way into Dodge city and I asked why we were doing almost a hundred miles an hour on this piss-poor road. To this day I remember the smile on his face as he replied, "Cause this truck has the biggest engine Catapiller makes..."
WOW-Nice-Sounds likes you got in the truck of someone with a deathwish and he was lookin for someone to take with him-I used to like driving fast cars when I was young but not anymore-I'm a retired trucker and I have seen too many wrecks from speed-Cat is a great engine tho-he was right on that!-glad ya survived the ride!
