Carla’s parents would be home any second. We had stripped her bedroom of valuables, which included black light posters. Our $50, ‘61 Chevy station wagon had been resurrected from the near dead with love and the addition of curtains. With gentle coaxing and a cable massage I got six of her eight cylinders firing.
“Let’s get out of here, before they get back!”
Me and dog looking for America
Plans for our future had only gotten as far as buying the wagon and stripping her bedroom. Carla had told her parents she was leaving home, but they chose not to believe her. They simply said, “Don’t.”
“Where are we going?” It wasn’t just a physical destination we needed. I was asking about the rest of our lives. Or at least the next day. Those seconds before one of us answered was an experience of total freedom.
“West.”
We headed west from Evanston, Il. with dog, cat, bird and black light posters. Simon and Garfunkle called it looking for America; Jack Kerouac, Easy Rider and all that. Hippies on the road. Everyone felt obligated to visibly scorn us, or smile in admiration and envy.
We bought 50 pounds of potatoes in Idaho for $5 and cooked them on the engine block. It takes 100 miles to bake a potato. Ten miles for crisps on the manifold. 
On the Oregon coast, I put on my non smelling, looking for work shirt and got my dream job – radio DJ. The entrance to our new life. Start date was in a week. We had $40 left. For $30 we rented a combination room, bathroom and kitchen in a self demolishing shack signed “BORIS’S MODERN COTTAGES”. It had running water, mostly on the floor, from a combo shower and sink without a drain. Boris gave us an extra month to pay the damage deposit. We’d hear the ocean as we made love on our damp floor mattress. Life was working the way it should. We were pretty much in heaven.
The ocean was more water than the cat could handle
The night of my first shift, I was told my DJ job was given to a returning Viet vet. We had $1.23 left. Our station wagon’s battery had died. We couldn’t even catch up with the world, or have a bit of music from the car radio. It was summer. I had to be enrolled in a university in fall for a student deferment, or get drafted. Our only escape, the dying, rusted wagon was parked right by our window. I laid awake, staring at it. The ocean in the background, as I imagined the day the wagon would again magically rescue us. Freedom doesn’t last.
Cute story. What an adventure on the road to a new life.