“I got my thrill on Blueberry Hill,” was the theme song of a 1970 trip to the West Coast.  I think of this every time I do a California adventure.  The last one was several months ago when we met my son and his family in San Francisco.  (See Post #200).  In a couple of days, we’ll be in Los Angeles for the second time this year, but the most memorable road trip of my life was traveling from Indiana to California 47 years ago.  I was home from college for the summer, and helped a good friend paint his Uncle’s home for some extra cash.  As soon as we got paid, we “borrowed” my Dad’s 1969 Ford Galaxy 500.  With my sloppy painting skills, I’m quite sure that my buddy’s Uncle regretted the decision to cut a few corners on hiring a painter.  The bushes around his home probably had more white paint on them than the siding.  My Dad also regretted his decision to loan us his new car, thinking we were traveling to nearby Lake Michigan for a little camping.  Honestly, when we first took the wheel, that’s exactly where we thought we were headed.

I don’t like to camp, but I sure like to drive on four-lane highways, and we blew right by our destination exit.  As my Dad exclaimed when he got our call from Los Angeles:  “Thank God There’s an Ocean!”  The Pacific Ocean was the only thing that truly stopped us.  We did several necessary pit-stops for gas, bought some orange juice in Las Vegas, and took a slight detour to race across the Bonneville Salt Flats, but we were determined to go as far as we could, as fast as we could.  As a Midwesterner, I was also very naive about mountains and tried to take a short cut.  Four lanes led to two lanes; then onto a dirt road that eventually became but a dry creek bed.   We were “up Shit Creek without a paddle,” as sharp rocks completely flattened one tire, and ruined the other three.   Fortunately my friend had family in L.A., who gave us some old snow tires to continue our journey.  They, of course, made a very unpleasant and distracting humming sound on the long drive home.  Hummmmmmmm………

We spent a couple of nights in a cheap hotel on the Sunset Strip, and were exposed to many eye-opening sights and smells.  We then ran out of money and had to pick artichokes with the migrant workers for a couple of days to refill our wallets.  I also recall an encounter with a large pack of “Hell Angel’s” along curvy Highway 101, riding motorcycles that sounded like a swarm of dangerous bees.  We made our way up the coast to San Francisco, parked at Fisherman’s Wharf, and took our first trolley ride up to the Haight-Ashbury District, hoping to see some live music at the famous Fillmore.  Unfortunately, it was closed that night, but a poster on the door was for a Led Zeppelin concert that night at the Oakland Coliseum.  Stupidly, we had left our cash locked in the glove box of the car and had no way to get back to Fisherman’s Wharf.  We ran up and down hills to eventually get there, still in youthful shape, and immediately drove to Oakland.  I was only familiar with the group Led Zeppelin because of one of my first stereo purchases.  The distinctive Hindenburg cover was one of only a few available stereo albums at the store.  (See Post #140)

I remember a mountain of empty booze bottles and a cloud of sweet smoke in the air, but the most memorable part of the show was the encore, as Zeppelin covered the familiar song Blueberry Hill.  It would not be the last time we would hear it performed on our journey.  Several days later we were in Reno casino and saw it performed by the very guy who made it famous  – Fats Domino.  This is why I always refer to our adventure as the “Blueberry Hill Tour of 1970.”  I have written an unpublished book about our cross-country escapes that I fondly titled ,”Thank God There’s An Ocean,” after my father’s witty words in that first phone call home.  He was a surprisingly good sport about our travel deception, but promptly traded-in his badly abused vehicle, snow tires and all.  We failed to notice that the oil was a bit low, and that corrosive sand from the Bonneville Salt Flats was embedded in in every little crevice, inside and out.  Without ever saying it, he probably knew that we “Got our Thrill,” but was just glad when we returned home safely.