“Surfing the Interstates” 1973 Hitchhiking Memoir
True Story of a Life-Changing 4,000 Mile Odyssey—Westchester to the Rockies, Wyoming to the Redwoods, Santa Rosa to Big Sur, LA to El Paso, Las Cruces to Big Bend
“Surfing The Interstates”—the first book of a memoir trilogy—chronicles a transformative 4,000-mile hitchhiking journey across America in 1973. This coming-of-age memoir follows a 21-year-old's two-month odyssey from East Coast privilege to West Coast revelation, capturing the last summer when you could truly vanish in America.
I still have my handwritten “Record” which I carried during this entire journey.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Thumb Out
(Eight minute read)
Andre's dramatic escape from his family's Westchester estate with $80 stolen from his mother
The traumatic moment that triggers his departure - witnessing domestic violence
First encounters with 1970s hitchhiking culture and the kindness of strangers
A Vietnam veteran's perspective on draft resistance and the war's aftermath
Meeting Rainbow and Derek - cosmic hippie lovers heading to get a motorcycle
The beginning of a 4,000-mile journey that will transform a sheltered young man
Why 1973 was the perfect year for disappearing into America's counterculture underground
Chapter Two
Turn On Your Lovelight
(Ten minute read)
A transformative 1970 Grateful Dead concert at Penn that defined a generation
Pigpen's final performances and Andre's mystical connection through a tambourine
A psychedelic encounter with Sara that becomes spiritual and sexual awakening
Gothic cathedral acoustics meeting counterculture communion
How one night of music and acid shaped a young man's search for transcendence
Chapter Three
The Kindness of Strangers
(Fourteen minute read)
A flute player who steers his VW with his knees while performing
A Vietnam veteran's perspective on draft resistance and road love
Impromptu music sessions with international travelers
The culture clash between road wanderers and college students
Why the "kindness of strangers" was real in 1970s America
Chapter Four
The Price of Paradise
(Nine minute read)
A ride with wealthy women playing at counterculture in a pristine VW Westfalia
Class tensions between trust fund hippies and authentic road culture
Nederland, Colorado mountain community and its contradictions
How prep school background creates both privilege and alienation
The uncomfortable truth about who could afford to "drop out" in 1973
Why some paradise always comes with a price tag
Chapter Five
The Frequency of Freedom
(Sixteen minute read)
Taking shelter with fellow musicians in a Colorado mountain town
Glen Haven General Store as refuge for traveling troubadours
How canyon acoustics create natural amplification for guitar music
The intersection of hippie travelers and rural Colorado culture
Why some places become magnets for musical wanderers
Chapter Six
Solitary Push
(Seven minute read)
Andre's dangerous solo journey through hostile Wyoming with police harassment
Haunting memories of college friend Steve Ferry’s transformation from brilliant student to paranoid recluse
The reality of draft resistance and psychological deferments during Vietnam
How fear and isolation corrupted the counterculture dream
Cross-country truckers, speed freaks, and the loneliness of long-distance hitchhiking
The ominous approach to California and a reunion that will change everything
Why some people couldn't handle the freedom they fought for
Chapter Seven
Chicken Coop Days
(Ten minute read)
Andre's arrival at Steve Ferry's converted chicken coop in Santa Rosa, California
The powerful metaphor of a lightning-struck redwood that kept growing despite damage
Flashback to their perfect day at RFK Stadium before everything went wrong
Steve's traumatic confrontation with his father and recruitment campaign work
Working California prune farms while Steve's paranoia deepens
The reality of living with someone whose mental health is deteriorating
Why some friendships can't survive the weight of untreated trauma
Chapter Eight
Sasha Among the Giants
(Thirteen minute read)
Andre's escape from paranoid friend Steve to the ancient redwood forests
Three days of profound solitude among two-thousand-year-old giants
Meeting Sasha, a mystical woman who talks to trees at a commune
A transformative peyote experience revealing the consciousness of forests
Visions of home, belonging, and humanity's connection to nature
The realization that some people are meant to be witnessed, not possessed
Why the redwoods became Andre's cathedral and teacher
Chapter Nine
Target Practice
(Seven minute read)
The dark side of 1970s counterculture - when dropping out becomes breaking down
Steve's descent into armed paranoia and midnight guitar feedback sessions
The moment friendship becomes dangerous in Sonoma County's plum orchards
A .22 rifle accident that shatters more than car windows
Why sometimes leaving is the most courageous choice you can make
Real counterculture breakdown - no romanticized hippie mythology
The last conversation before Steve's eventual tragic end
Chapter Ten
Let the Guitar Decide
(Fourteen minute read)
The pilgrimage to 1016 Lincoln Street - Grateful Dead headquarters in San Rafael
Jerry Garcia's mystical encounter with a 1935 Harmony Cremona guitar
The moment when music becomes destiny instead of escape
Real 1973 Grateful Dead scene - behind the mythology, inside the magic
Golden Gate Park revelations and notebook confessions
Cosmic Eddie's Uncertainty Principle - the psychedelic bus that shouldn't exist
Highway 1 south toward Big Sur with circus performers and cosmic wanderers
Chapter Eleven
ZIP!
(Seven minute read)
The cosmic piss stop at Bixby Bridge overlooking Big Sur's impossible cliffs
Two metallic objects appear, moving faster than fighter jets but silent
UFOs scan the Pacific with brilliant light beams, reading ocean patterns
Physics-defying movements - objects teleport instantly without acceleration
The ocean becomes transparent, revealing underwater sacred geometry
A dozen witnesses frozen in disbelief as reality bends around them
Solo camping afterward to process the impossible encounter
Chapter Twelve
Love Through Stone
(Twelve minute read)
Prophetic African dream with three mystical stones and a phone call from mother
Processing the impossible UFO encounter through symbolic visions
Meeting Geoff and Jason - Louisiana boys heading home from California adventures
The concrete sprawl of LA versus the village community never experienced
Peterbilt ride through the Mojave Desert with Willie Nelson soundtrack
Boarding school isolation patterns revealed through dream symbolism
The prophetic feeling of a woman waiting who will teach "Tuesday after Tuesday"
Chapter Thirteen
The Ocean Don’t Lie
(Six minute read)
Peterbilt ride through desert darkness with Carl, a trucker who lost his son in Vietnam
Phoenix truck stop survival on shared Grand Slam breakfasts and endless coffee
Meeting Wade - Vietnam vet sailor with a gutted VW van and hard-earned wisdom
Near-death tire blowout at 75 mph on Arizona interstate
Wade's sailing philosophy: "The ocean don't lie like land does"
Desert heat reaching 108 degrees and the kindness of wine-soaked strangers
Arrival in Las Cruces with Big Bend Canyon prophecy echoing ahead
Chapter Fourteen
Out in the West Texas Town of El Paso
(Nine minute read)
Lucky Tiger truck stop in El Paso - hostile trucker territory for longhaired hitchhikers
Watching Steve Ferry’s death on morning TV news - prophecy fulfilled in blood
The garage explosion and slow-motion police shooting captured by helicopter
Film canisters labeled "Murder. Insanity. Death." spilling in Steve's blood
Understanding how Vietnam War destroyed those who never went to combat
The impossible task of playing "El Paso" in actual El Paso after witnessing tragedy
Recognition that paranoia becomes reality when you believe hard enough
Chapter Fifteen
The Descending Dark
(Nine minute read)
Midnight truck ride through Texas with gospel radio and grief over Steve Ferry's death
The fateful decision to part ways with Geoff and Jason at the highway junction
Meeting rancher Williams who understands canyon medicine and carrying grief properly
Solo night hike into Santa Elena Canyon seeking ancient healing beyond words
The devastating discovery - Jerry Garcia's blessed 1935 Harmony Cremona stolen
Learning that some losses cut deeper than others, some thefts can't be recovered
Canyon walls as church older than language, indifferent to human suffering
Chapter Sixteen
Phantom Ships
(Ten minute read)
Five-day vision quest fast in Santa Elena Canyon's limestone cathedral
F-4 Phantom military jet desecrating sacred space during low-level training
Rage transforming stones into doves into prayers into nothing
"Wooden Ships" soundtrack to mystical experience and ghostly conversations
Steve Perry’s spirit explaining his paranoid self-destruction
Prophetic vision of future sailing life and the woman who "moves like water"
The final transformation from roads to water, linear to circular, war to peace
Surfing the Interstates: A Hitchhiking Memoir of 1973 America
July 10, 1973. Nixon's America is crumbling. The Vietnam War is "over" but still killing the boys who said no. The counterculture's promise is curdling into paranoia. And a 21-year-old named Andre walks away from everything, carrying a guitar, a backpack, and a secret: he's just seen his father strike his mother, shattering the last illusion of his privileged prison.
This is the true story of that summer—a hitchhiking memoir of 4,000 miles across an America that doesn't exist anymore.
Before You Could Be Found, You Had To Get Lost A Road Trip Memoir Unlike Any You've Read
This isn't another romanticized road trip memoir. This is the true story of two months that don't exist anymore—when you could disappear completely into America's vastness with no cell phones, no digital traces, just your thumb and the kindness or cruelty of strangers. When a young man damaged by prep schools and noble bloodlines could steal $80 from his mother's jewelry box and step into a 1970s counterculture wrestling with its own contradictions.
Perfect for readers who loved Wild, On the Road, or Educated—but want the unvarnished truth of what hitchhiking 4,000 miles actually cost one soul in the summer of '73.
Born To Privilege, Raised By Absence From Estate Servant's Quarters to American Highways
Andre is nobody's hero. He's the oldest of six, living in the servant's quarters of his own family's estate, a Penn dropout who wanted to make films but got philosophy instead. Raised in all-boys schools, moved seven times before age eight, he's learned to pass through life without connecting, to play melody lines in the background but never the whole song. He's privileged wreckage carrying centuries of French aristocratic expectations he can neither fulfill nor fully escape.
What You'll Experience in This Hitchhiking Memoir:
→ 16 chapters of authentic 1970s road adventures (no Instagram-worthy moments)
→ Real counterculture encounters—communes, paranoid friends, mystical strangers
→ UFO sightings and desert visions that defy explanation
→ The true education of hardship: minimum wage work, sleeping rough, going hungry
→ A complete arc from privileged isolation to hard-won connection
→ The last documented summer when America's vastness could swallow you whole
Some Journeys Can't Be Measured In Miles
What follows is a 4,000-mile education in being human. Through the kindness of strangers and the cruelty of fate, through redwood medicine and desert visions, through the death of his paranoid friend Steve and encounters with the impossible (UFOs reading the Pacific's memory like scripture), Andre discovers that transformation doesn't come from running but from learning to read the deep patterns—in nature, in others, in himself.
This Isn't Kerouac. This Is What Actually Happened. Sacred Realism: A 1970s Memoir Without the Mythology
This hitchhiking memoir strips away the romantic mythology of road stories. No beatific visions of American freedom—just the sacred realism of what transformation actually costs. Unlike other travel memoirs that celebrate the journey, this is unflinching about damage, honest about failure, but ultimately affirming that even the most isolated among us can learn connection. That you can grow around damage like a redwood around lightning scars. That somewhere between the road's false freedom and the ocean's patient return, there's a way to be human that includes both breaking and healing.
The Desert Shows Him What The Road Never Could
By memoir's end, Andre emerges from a Texas canyon understanding he needs "water not roads"—tidal movement rather than linear escape. The vision of a woman who will teach him "Tuesday after Tuesday" suggests not an ending but a beginning, not another escape but finally learning to stay.
Every Ending Is A Prophecy Book One of "The Spaces Between" Memoir Trilogy
This hitchhiking memoir is just the beginning. Surfing the Interstates launches a three-book journey spanning 50 years:
Book One (Available Now): The 1973 escape—4,000 miles of American roads and desert transformation
Book Two "Sahara Dust" (2026): Seven years building a windsurfing empire in Antigua with the woman from the canyon prophecy
Book Three "Green Mountain Flash" (2027): When everything built on sand must find bedrock in Vermont's unforgiving seasons
The desert vision becomes reality. The journey from disconnection to community completes. This is memoir as triptych—each book deepening the story of one man's 50-year search for home.
For Everyone Who Knows That Running And Searching Aren't The Same Thing
Because in our age of infinite connection but profound isolation, Andre's journey from disconnection to community, from paranoia to presence, from the eternal stranger to someone capable of love, speaks to our current hunger. We're all looking for the same thing he was—not just to escape what's broken but to find what's whole, to discover that the kindness of strangers is real, that transformation is possible, that somewhere ahead, patient as tides, love waits for us to grow enough to receive it.
The Last American Summer When You Could Truly Vanish
This is a survivor's tale from the last moment when America's vastness could swallow you whole and sometimes, if you were lucky or blessed or empty enough to receive grace, spit you back out transformed.
Start the Journey: Read This Hitchhiking Memoir Now
Ready to experience the last American summer when you could truly vanish?
Begin with Chapter One: "Thumb Out" — Andre leaves his family's estate with $80 stolen from his mother's jewelry box and a 1935 guitar. What follows will transform everything he thought he knew about privilege, hardship, and what it means to be human.
Welcome to the Summer of '73. Some stories can only be told looking back.
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