Auto mechanics among you may have anticipated a flaw in our plan. After rebuilding a truck engine, it needs to be broken-in before pulling a ton of household goods over the Continental Divide. Pat may have acted impetuously on occasion...well, most of the time up until this point in his life...but he knew a lot about working on engines back in those days before computer diagnostics replaced feeler gauges and timing lights. A couple of days before embarking on the long drive from Huntington Beach to Buffalo, New York, he got behind the steering wheel of his beloved truck and drove all night at a modest speed until he had put over 500 miles on the new engine, after which he changed the oil and made the final adjustments. 
I can't say I remember all the details of the first part of our drive. I have a few faded, generic photos of the scenery. Anyone who has lived in Southern California has probably driven to Las Vegas a few times, and the desert was about the same on this trip as on prior and subsequent trips. 
Even though I had been through Utah on family vacations as a kid, a lot of the times I slept through the drive in the back seat, or actually on the ledge above the seat by the rear window in those days before seat belts seemed that important. I know that on this trip, I was amazed by Utah's beauty. I was riding with Pat in the truck, and out conversation primarily centered on how the scenery just kept getting better.
By the time we were approaching Colorado, I was driving the Triumph. When I was 17 and holding down my first job (janitor at Kaiser Hospital in Harbor City), most of my income went to buying music and making payments on a lime green Fiat 850 Spyder. I would refuel by putting in two dollars of gas. That was actually enough to fill that 6.3 gallon tank at 30 cents a gallon, and since it got 30 miles to the gallon, it would last almost a week despite a rather long commute to my job. I don't remember exactly why I sold it, but I'm sure it had to do with money being tight. I never got tired of driving a two seat sports car, and having the opportunity to get behind the wheel of this GT6, which by comparison was quite peppy, was quite a thrill for this cross-country drive. 
The first place I remember spending the night was Colorado National Monument above Grand Junction. We set up camp, built a campfire, and enjoyed some 3.2 Coors Beer, which someone with whom Pat worked had convinced him was the thing to drink in Colorado. I think it was actually a beer with lower alcohol content that people between 18 and 20 were allowed to drink in Colorado, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. I pulled out my guitar and played the most appropriate song I could think of: "Rocky Mountain High." As I recall, that song never sounded better or fit any occasion more perfectly, although I always hear my voice through the filter of my own mind, while others must suffer with mortal ears. I remember playing the Emerson, Lake and Palmer song, "Lucky Man," which was also a part of my repertoire. Pat told me that the first time he heard me play that song, he thought I had written it. He said he thought I must be some kind of musical genius until he heard ELP's version on the radio one day. We shared a good laugh about that.
As we moved further into the evening, becoming more wise and deep, I remember we talked about how man had begun to play God with nature. We wondered if God liked that arrangement, and perhaps we figured out the nature of being, but I don't remember what the answer was. Pat announced he would go back to school to become a doctor when he got to New York. I expressed extreme skepticism about this plan, which made him angry. The buzz was too good to kill the mood by proving myself right, so I told him he could do whatever he wanted. I told him that whether or not I thought he could do anything was irrelevant. He had to find the strength within himself to carry it out. That seemed to satisfy him. As an aside, he never became a doctor, but he did surprise all of his childhood friends by becoming a teacher in the 1990s. More to the point, his time in the Rocky Mountains inspired him to earn a Bachelor's Degree in Forestry at Utah State University within a few years of our Rocky Mountain high moment. I'm still amazed that Pat managed to last four years within the Mormon community of Logan, Utah. He was probably the wildest man in town. It also inspired me. Within nine months, I would be living in the Rocky Mountains, where it would take four years living there to realize that you can't beat the climate in California. 
