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Trip Around the World
Gary L. Baker
Click image for up close view of travel track
Red tracks are air flight, Black are over land or sea
After I graduated from my Medical Technology Internship at Long Beach Memorial Hospital Medical Center in 1980, I worked as a Staff Medical Technologist for a while. I was not used to making that kind of money, and I soon had $6000 in the bank. I decided leave the summer pollution season in the Los Angeles basin and to go on a trip across the U.S. in my old Ford Econoline van, then spend a few months in Europe. I never expected my trip would turn into an odyssey all around the world.
I. United States
Up the West Coast, down the Rockies, across Texas, around the Gulf Coast and up the East Coast. That's a lot of coasting.
Visited Dad when he was care taking an old ferry boat at Pier 1 at the foot of Market Street in San Francisco. Got pulled into the police station for having 3-year expired Montana plates on my old Econoline van. While being processed by the police, I was sat on a wooden bench with a pair of hand cuffs locked to the arm rest at one end. Sleeping in the redwoods that night, I hear on the radio that the police had killed a young guy who pulled a weapon while cuffed to the same wood bench. Slept at the Devil's Churn the next night, then visited my Mom in Port Ordhard WA. From there, a quick trip over to Missoula MT, where I was born and raised. Some late night partying was next in Anaconda, where my biker gang brother had a house (painted black).
Zion, Bryce, Four Corners. Grand Canyon (great memory of hiking to the bottom for a thunderstorm symphony years before on spring break). Carlsbad Caverns in NM. Hot and dry. I guess it was about June. Stayed cool by spraying myself with water. Took showers every day from a gallon of water sitting next to the engine cowling. Just opened the side doors out and poured water over my naked self (even did this later, parked on 5th Ave in NYC). Got to New Orleans and the water spraying trick stopped working to cool myself because the humidity was sooo high. Around the Florida coasts and down the Everglades where I nearly went crazy from the mosquitos (all around the world, my great nemesis was mosquitos).
Snorkeling in the Keys with sharks at the edge of my vision gave this Montana boy the creeps. Suddenly, all the different fish around me went into a panic. I got ready for a shark and was soon surrounded by a school tough fish (black Jack?) systematically scouring the terrain in waves for whatever prey presented itself. Kind of a helpless feeling, since I couldn't out swim a fish. Good thing I was not food.
Through the green hardwood forests of the Carolinas to Washington D.C. Of course, the Smithsonian museums blew my mind. My favorites were the space capsules and old TV show sets. Funny a young hippie would get choked up by the Lincoln Memorial.
I was lucky to find a parking spot in front of a fancy town house on 5th Avenue in New York City. I made it my home base and bicycled around most of Manhattan. I was surprised the doorman did not give me the boot after a while. A lady and Jewish guy approached me in front of coffee shop and asked me to have a cup of coffee. I chained my bike up to a sign post and was surprised we had to walk for coffee at a store front of the World Unification Church. We watched a slide show of happy people working on a farm up state, and I agreed to drive a group of people up there for a stay. I went back for my bike, only to see someone had cut the chain, right in the crowd of NYC citizens, and stolen my bike. Drove to an old summer camp in the Adirondacks and was instructed to park my van in a dead-end slot cut from the woods. Day in day out, they controlled our every minute. Working and singing. Went for a run down the road and staff chased me down in a truck with escalating pleas to return. Playing my guitar and singing a sad song, they shut me down because it didn't fit the atmosphere they were cultivating. I was told my family didn't love me and the church was my family. They would find me a job, not in my trained profession of medical technology, and control my earnings. Yet, I liked the people and church. One day at a talk session, one student mentioned he was happy there, but had been concerned at first that they were "Moonies". The counselor surprised us all my offering that the Reverend Sun Yung Moon was the church founder and leader. Soon thereafter, I wanted to leave the camp, but they would not give me back the keys to my van. Moreover, the president of the North America church, Moshe Durst, had parked his car in front of my van, so it couldn't be moved even if I had the keys. I kept demanding more strenuously over some days for my keys and removal of President Durst's car. Eventually I planned to use my buck saw to cut down a new path out through the trees; the old van would be easy to hot wire and drive without a key. At the last moment, the Durst's car was gone and they gave me back my keys. I drove off near dusk. A few miles down the mountain road, I pulled over at a scenic outlook and was amazed at what had just happened. An independent minded person can be molded by isolation and selective information access to take on opinions desired by the controllers. The rest of my life, I could not hate innocent isolated people manipulated by authorities; and would not let myself be controlled in this way again.
I parked on the decrepit Boston waterfront (this was before the renovation in the '80s), and was sleeping in my van. Some guy with a Dutch boy haircut reached his arm in the partly open window, trying to get in for a theft. Was he surprised to see I was sleeping in there, and yelling at him? I decided that storing the van in Boston while I was in Europe didn't make sense. So, buying some milk at the 7-eleven, I asked the clerk if he wanted to buy my van real cheap. He declined, but the guy behind me in line took up the offer. I packed my guitar and blankets into a box and shipped them back to Dad in San Francisco. I hopped the 747 for London, some Blondie album in my headset.
II. Europe: Descriptions to Follow
III. Middle East
IV. India I
V East Asia
Gary L. Baker, Esq. BioPatent Intellectual Property Services San Leandro, California (510) 483-8220 See My Discussion Pages and Talk to Me About Your Ideas: Baker@BioPatent.com