A trip back in time to Rainbow 2006- Part 1

---

---

To get this blog rolling, I wanted to take a few steps back in time to June 2006 where we ventured from here in Corpus Christi, Texas to Steam Boat Springs Colorado for the Rainbow Gathering.

Soooo...im going to cheat just a little for these first few entires. I have a tendancy to be quite verbose when I write, so I'm taking the liberty to write several entries about rainbow! I'm taking these from another blog that I have, so if they are confusing because of that, Immmm sorrrrryyyyy.

Also, here is a list of the people involved in this saga that you will hear referred to:

People:

* Chris- yup chris, my now former fiance and best friend.
* Michelle- My girlie! Also referred to as "M" or "Shel" in my writings.
* Boobacita- M's Mom! Totally bad ass chickita!
* Pavel- Chris' and My's good friend from the Czech Republic. He's also a roommate of ours, and a good one at that!
* Chung- He's the buff Korean dude in all the photos. We've known him for a while too, he can pretty much be seen at any time of

Boys playing Chess

---

One of the best things about having a bus to travel in- the space! Here Chris and Pavel are playin chess

the day playing guitar, drawing, doing martial arts…or smoking.
* Dan- Our friend that gave us the original idea for the bus and running on veggie! Also introduced us to Rainbow three years ago!
* Rayven- Introduced to us by Dan. He also has a schoolie that runs on veggie, and is our technical engineer for Organic Mechanic.
* Jen- Rayven's girlie and mother of their son, Babu- they're self named 2 year old.
* Nemo- An older man that parked next to the bus and quickly became our friend.

Thus, here is

Part One- Pre Rainbow Trip

I left off before the trip with a short blog on the 24th of June, a Saturday at 3am. I said the bus was running well and was allll excited, that we'd be out of there in a few hours. WRONG!!! I'll spare you the technical details of why La Fonda (the bus) was not cooperating, but it had stuff to do with a fuel pump for the veggie, butt connectors, collecting veggie oil, and the tanks pee hole. Well actually, not that last one...that was just fun to say as I went to and from the walmart down the street looking for parts then going back home, realizing i got the wrong ones, going back to walmart, etc...all the while having my phone stuck to my ear as michelle soothed and laughed with me.

It wasnt for almost a whole 24 hours until we left i'd say. Something like that, its hard to remember now its so far a way. But it was such hell getting it all ready to go. We also had to pack away ALL of our valuables into a near by storage facility for fear of another break in while we were gone. Ok, im done bitching about that.

The first leg we just drove straight to San Antonio and decided to sleep for the night in a Walmart parking lot (YAY 48 hour RV parking policy!). All four of us in the bus (Me, Chris, Pavel, and Chung) were exhausted and not wanting to start on driving shifts. After scoring some veggie in a rich part of San Antonio and refilling our water, grabbing some snacks, guerrilla recharging our electronics, and peeing we headed out on a "straight there" mission.

Dont you love road trips? Dont you love road trips where you have multiple drivers!?! Dont you love road trips where you can actually sleep in a bed...in your vehicle...while someone else drives for you?! I do.

Unfortunately though, Texas is HUGE!!! So it took the majority of our trip just to get through this freakin state. We went straight on from the southern area of texas (Corpus) right up through the top growth of it. Lionel kept sending me text messages: "Are we there yet?!!" "Sunday Driver" "PLEASE tell me your out of texas" and such. All the while i kept close contact with Michelle of course...especially being that I was losing our precious planning time! In only a day or so i would be completely off the Grid, and unable to talk to her or plan how we were going to meet at Rainbow...everything. So we very carefully came up with plans and back up plans on how to find each other while i was curled in the back of our two beds on the bus, hiding from the wind to talk with her.

FINALLY we made our way out of boring BORING ass texas. Stupid flat state...grrr! and into Oklahoma for a tinsy tinsy bit and then finally into Colorado. I slept all the way through Oklahoma, but i drove PLENTY in Colorado! And BOY!!! Was it beautiful there. No more flat dry land covered in shrubs and Long-Horn Cow...things. There were hills, and mountains and all sorts of gushy hippy pretty stuff. Beautiful.

Living on "the road" is always so interesting to me. Trying to figure out how you can get your resources like food, water, sleep area, electronics. I was pretty determined to keep my phone charged, so I always found a plug while we were collecting and filtering veggie oil. And water- we brought a filter so tap water was good where we could find it. Food- if i remember correctly we may have stopped for fast food once, the rest was peanut butter sammiches, gatorade, and crackers. mmmmm!

Thats right, I'm talking hard core mountain driving. Well, to you and your little zippy-car it may not be much, but...well...have you ever seen those "Emergency Run-Away Truck Ramps"?!! They are there for a reason! Not saying I had to use one, but we probably came pretty close to needind it a few times! Specifically this one hill (which taught me my lesson)- it was a very wind-y and very steep hill. I underestimated the weight of the bus as I squirmed down it. At a certain point...ohh, a little more than halfway down the hill- my breaks were to the floor, and I was still in a forward movement!! We were NOT stopping! And not slowing down ANYMORE! PHEW!!!!! I made the last turn as smoothly as I could, came to a small straightaway with a stop sign...Blew on through that stop sign and rolled to a stop on some side shoulder. The breaks REEKED! And the Emergency Break wasnt stopping us from rolling! We had to block up the tires so we wouldnt Roll!

We waited a while for our breaks to stop smoking and tried to check out the road ahead of us as much as possible. I developed a strategy of- Go SLOW!!!! while going down hill. First i did this by pumping my breaks as we went down and picked up speed...but...well we have air breaks ladies and gents. And Air Breaks "run out" if you arent rebuilding air pressure. So as soon as our "Low Break Pressure" Light and buzzer came on we'd have to try and park the bus, throw some wood and rocks under the tires and wait for the pressure to build back up! It was pretty scary. Our next strategy was to put the bus into the 1st gear override...option. Which worked wonders! Didnt have to hit our breaks once as we creeped down 4 mile stretches of shitty declined roads!

FINALLY we came upon Steam Boat Springs! Which is where the Gathering was going to be held! I got my last convo in with Michelle, in which she informed me she would actually be arriving TWO DAYS earlier than planned!!!!! We asked for specific directions to Route 129 and headed off the grid. About a mile onto 129 we picked up our first hitch hiker ever, Alley. We've got mixed feelings about picking up hitch hikers, but A) we were feeling pretty charged about almost being to Rainbow! and B) its a CHICK!

We really didnt know what to expect as we got closer to the National Forrest Entry, but the closer we got...the more peace signs we threw! EVERY VEHICLE that passed us coming from the opposite direction threw us peace signs and waves! And I threw them back! It was an amazing feeling! Soon the paved road left us, and we were driving on a gravely windy path into the forest. Up ahead of us was another Schoolie! A purple one, PACKED with gear and people and bikes and all sorts of things! Us two busses and a car sammiched between us, wound slowly towards rainbow getting a taste of our first plague of dust.

We followed the "Home" signs and the rock formations that lined the trail until we finally came to the entry of Rainbow.

---