You can’t pass through Oregon without thinking about Ken Kesey, the Merry Pranksters, Tom Wolfe, Neal Cassady, and all those other cats. Sure their odyssey didn’t really begin here, it began in San Francisco, after Kesey left Stanford, discovered acid, hooked up with the lunatics who floated around City Lights, and hooked up with more lunatics at Haight/Ashbury. But what lunatics! Still and all his thinking life began in Oregon, when he was an undergraduate at Eugene, and it was here that his best works were set. It was also to here that he returned to run his small farm, hide from the limelight and lunatics, and try to find sanity again. I believe he did before he finally died, some four years ago. Must have been quite a guy.

Portland was great: the rain, the big rivers, bicycles everywhere and rose bushes as big as trees. The Portland Art Center was even better. It’s run by a dude named Gavin Shettler, and man does he do a great job. Amusing, dedicated, and disciplined all at once. Rare package. He’s a Kansas City boy by way of Oregon, so we had a lot in common. He brought in a great crowd. I did the performance, made them laugh, made them sad, gave them things to think about. Also did my best to give them hope and inspiration; believe I succeeded. As usual, they gave right back. That’s what I dig about speaking: the vibrational exchange.

I’d love to stay awhile in Oregon, go to the coast, Coos Bay and the dunes, then later Hood, and some serious hiking in the Cascades. No time this trip. The next signing’s in Seattle. In fact two of them, and a radio interview. After all it’s a book tour, not a vacation. Damnit.