8am... San Francisco United Airlines terminal. The Great Missing Prankster/Bus caper has been solved. At gate 89 all the way at the end of the bustling Rhapsody In Blue airline terminal, even beyond the twelve by twenty-five foot William Wiley/Eyes and Ears Foundation acrylic painting titled V~O~I~D ... are the Prankstersssssssssssss having just flown in from Eugene an hour earlier. 8am is really damn early for your normal run-of-the-mill Prankster, but here they were, ebullient in their anticipation, fascinated by what what they were about to encounter!
Flight 952 boarded on time and sixteen
of the entourage were seated within four rows together toward the back of
the plane. The plane left the gate at precisely the time advertised... and
we taxied toward the runway. The chitter-chatter among us was extremely
amusing. We really weren't talking about stuff in particular... we were
just talking about stuff in particular! The taxi to the takeoff seemed to
be perpetual... all of a sudden Babbs caused an enormous roar of laughter
from the back of the plane... "HEYYYY - WE'RE STILL ON THE GROUND!
WE'LL BE IN PALO ALTO ANY MINUTE!!!" 
The
yucks continued for an hour or so and eventually we all mellowed out and
took a nap! We flew over snow covered Sierra Nevada mountains, the desolate
Nevada desert, barren spring Utah, barely spring Wyoming and just about
blooming Nebraska descending into a glorious Chicago, Illinois day.
The inimitable Chris Szalay, the totally
coooooollllllll Director of Marketing for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
and Museum, along with MG's partner, Bill Burnwell, greeted us as we deplane.
It was great to be in Chicago, the second leg of the Grand 
Furthur Tour. Chris leased a 40' modern
bus to truck the Pranksters from the airport to the Prankster Bus which
had arrived the day before on the Low Boy truck and was waiting in the industrial
lot of a commercial bus company on the south side of Chicago. The Pranksters
are an observant group of individuals noticing every nuance, nook and cranny.
Nothing escapes the pupils and inquisitiveness of this bunch of bozos! From
the design of the local architecture to the social ramifications of so many
Catholic churches, seventeen people notice everything that passes by them
on the rush hour Chicago freeway. Upon arriving and sighting the Bus, George
Walker is the first to enter. He unlocks the door and climbs behind the
wheel... damn, the battery is dead! 
Big
deal, within minutes, up wheels a half-ton Ford pick-up from Keeshan Company
and fires up the Bus. Cheers abound!!! We all stand around analyzing the
situation and how George was going to drive that psychedelic morass of an
International Harvester off of that trailer because big wooden blocks had
to be placed under the tires to raise the back deck of the Bus off the ground
sufficiently enough so it wouldn't get hung up on the trailer of the Low
Boy and you have to be really careful when you get h - u - n - g - u - p
! ! ! If you do get hung up... "just listen to the music play".
The babes on the Bus - MG, Chris, Goldie and Candace... Anonymous is on the other side !
Without an inkling of fear or trepidation...
George, with the assistance of the group Prankster Mind, drove that ol'
Bus off of that Low Boy as if he were sailing the Flying Cloud north from
the Marquesas! It was as a much of a breeze for him as the wind that was
blowing through that ol' dusty industrial parking lot on a beauuuuuuutiful
spring afternoon in Chicago. The 
Bus
was driven inside the commercial bus company for safe storage until we are
ready to board for the remainder of the tour. Waiting for George to gingerly
drive off the Low Boy, I talked with the truck driver who hauled the Bus
from Eugene to Chicago. Jerry Russell is a tall lanky dude who used to drive
for Lynrd Skynrd. Accompanying Jerry is an 8 week old black lab puppy. Jerry
recounted the story about driving back through California with the Bus in
tow on the Low Boy. A California Highway Patrol officer pulled Jerry and
the Bus and the puppy over. Jerry prepared the papers to present to the
officer and wouldn't you know it... the Highway Patrol officer told Jerry
that wouldn't be necessary and asked Jerry to take his photograph next to
the Bus. The officer knew all about the history of it and wanted his picture
taken with the Bus. Jerry also said a DeadHead followed him all
the way from Wyoming to Chicago... nothing like a little security.
Kesey had everyone on the Bus sign several books for Jerry
We all boarded the forty-footer and
head back to from where we came toward our hotel. We drove north on Lakeshore
along Lake Michigan past what our totally interesting bus driver described
over the bus intercom - ("hey, where's our headsets?") - "on
the right is where all the rich and famous people live!", on our right
was Lake Michigan. We drove slowly past Soldier Field, sight of the last
Grateful Dead concert, duly noted by everyone on the bus! It was a soft
moment. A few blocks later, someone yelled out... "HEY,
is that Oprah?"
We all checked into our rooms and quickly approved of this finely appointed small neighborhood hotel on the tony north side of Chicago. This was one of those urban neighborhoods that you didn't have to worry about being mugged in. We agreed to meet in fifteen minutes because we were hungggggggggggggry! And so be it, we all met and started the trek on foot to Bella Vista on Belmont Street which we originally thought was a few minutes walk and turned out out to be more like a thirty minute walk. A third of the way there, Kesey noted that Goldie was missing! Are We Really? figured out where the restaurant was and went back to the totally cool hotel and found Goldie and headed back to join the Pranksters. The thirty minute walk to Bella Vista caused a slight shift in demographics from upscale to off the scale. The neighborhood because more and more Prankster friendly.
After checking out the bar... we were
seated in a veranda with our own twenty foot table overlooking the rest
of the restaurant directly above a thirtieth all girl, straight birthday
party celebration. It is a good thing Hagen was seated on the opposite side
from the railing. 
The menu
at this joint featured exquisite fair including a killer Chardonnay from
Chalk Hill vineyards in Sonoma County and a Steele Zinfandel from Mendocino
County California. Mountain Girl, anxious with an appetite to match, left
the table walking down to the kitchen and supervised the service with that
put-a-crew-on-it attitude. We ate to our hearts content all of the yummy
pasta and seafood and soup... Babbs demanded we have the mussel and clam
soup! Many toasts were raised and drank... HiP hIp HoOrAy! hIp HiP hOoRaY!
HIp Hip hooRAy! for this and that and her and him. We dug the food and the
wine settled us back down to where we belong. The edge of traveling had
just been absolved. My dinner seat mates were, on the right, George Walker,
on the left Roy Sebern. Interestedly, I learned from George Walker that
indeed he was the owner of the Flying Cloud in the early seventies. The
Flying Cloud, named for the greatest clipper ship of all time, was an 82
foot long by 82 foot high schooner rigged sail boat! George told stories
about sailing from Los Angeles to Hawaii to Tahiti to the Marquesas Islands.
In fact, George Walker, your intrepid bus driver, holds the record for sailing
from the Marquesas to Hawaii the fastest... ten days, eleven hours and twelve
minutes. She was a wooden boat built in 1929 which is when they designed
boats to race. 
Where am I... dinner over, we all fell onto the street and stumbled back toward the hotel. It's tough under sober circumstances to keep a group of Pranksterish folks together. Our parade covered several blocks within minutes. The night is young by Chicago standards, the younger Pranksters went to the Blues Clubs and the others crashed for the evening. I am sitting near the stairway typing this with the door open, they all have to walk past to exit... it's wild out there... see you tomorrow!
