'Get your kicks on...'

We had youth on our side. We also had an orange van named 'Van Gogh,' books printed by the Women's Press Collective, to distribute across the country, money, a laughable amount today, a sturdy bed built into the back of the van, one guitar, cigarettes, drugs (this was the 70's), no bottled water, and a paper map of the USA. There were 3 of us. My driving shift, poor night vision, was daylight. We hauled ass out of Oakland. First memorable stop, Santa Ana. Almost got into a barroom fight at a local dyke bar. Fuzz, who we were crashing with, whipped her glasses off and slapped them down on the bar. That close to brawling! And we hadn't even left Cali. Subie and Jules were my 2 traveling mates. Jules had family in Tennessee, and Michigan. Subie, Bangor Maine. We took the mother road as far as we could. We got lost in the Ozarks, and were covered by leeches, looking for a fabled town populated by women. We ate at truck stops where the food undulated with carbs. And the coffee was crappy. Crossing into the painted desert, we were stoned out of our collective minds, and had and never will see anything as beautiful again. We pulled off the road ways and slept in the van and woke up with dawn breaking over dewy fields stretching for miles. We saw Earl Scruggs in Tennessee under the stars. Got stared at in Memphis. And slept in pristine sheets in Benton Harbor. In DC we hooked up with the 'Furies,' and drank in a bar with Rita Mae. Van Gogh was ripped off in NYC. Of course! And the guitar stolen. Downer. We fled and hauled it up the eastern seaboard to Bangor, Maine. I took my first canoe ride across Lake Lucerne, and failed miserably with my paddle. In Nebraska stricken from heat we took our shirts off in a gas station, soaked them with water, and drove on. Stopped in Wyoming and mailed off the essential handful of  postcards. The salt flats were stark and the sierras, high country, beckoned us across.

Last week, I received word that Subie had died after a long battle with cancer. Over the years, we drifted apart, lost touch as so many of us do. I could riff on and on with the many moments we shared, but that road trip was defining. It created a vast well of memories. For all of us....Susan 'Subie' Baker, Oct 24, 1948-August 10, 2012.