getting underway. It was about 9:00 p.m. Thursday evening, September 2, when the hippycaravan got ready to get underway. It was going to be a trip of about 700 miles one way, and they hoped to be up on the roof of Nebraska sometime in the morning.
MineralMan and Odin2005, up over in Minnesota, were driving down from there, and meeting the rest of the party at the campsite along the river. Mrs. Alfred Packer telephoned MineralMan, to confirm that the southern party was setting off, and asking if all was okay at his end.
hippyhubby Wild Bill, in the manner of wagon-masters of cowboy-and-Indian covered-wagon days, went from vehicle to vehicle, checking the tires and oil, confirming that the gasoline tanks were full, and taking a census to ensure that all who were coming along, were accounted for.
It was to be hippyhubby and hippywife in the hippymobile, leading the pack, the food and cooking implements stored in the back. Mrs. Alfred Packer sat in the front passenger seat, enthroned on pillows and cushions, looking very much like a pampered plump Samoan queen being carried aloft on a sedan chair.
Behind them was Wild Bill’s brother with no forehead, at the wheel of the 1974 Chevolet Impala, warpy in the front seat with him, Wild Bill’s ma, grasswire, and Ms. Ed, the unappellated eohippus, in the back.
And then there was the ancient Econoline van, driven by Wild Bill’s brother with no chin, the one whose lower jaw melted into his neck. The back of that was filled with all the camping gear.
The brother with both eyes on the same side of his nose was driving the Roosevelt-era pick-up truck, butchery implements, chains, rope, wrapping-paper and string, and empty Thermos chests in the bed.
“Yeah,†Wild Bill smiled; “those chests are going to be filled with Nebraska corn-fed steaks, the premium franksolich brand, in a couple of days. If I wanted to, I could probably hawk them on Skins’s island or something.
“But I’d just as soon keep it all for ourselves.â€
At the end was the former Fed Ex delivery van, now disguised as a multi-tiered funeral hearse, driven by the brother-in-law, with hippyhubby’s sister beside him. It carried miscellaneous automotive parts, tools, and spare tires, in case something broke down in one of the hippyvehicles.
It was already dark when the hippycaravan departed the Packer homestead in the forests of northeastern Oklahoma, the vehicles bouncing and jostling on the deeply-rutted dirt road. It was west to Interstate 35, then straight north on that and U.S. Highway 81, to franksolich.
As they all approached the turn-off, Wild Bill put his upraised arm outside the window, and hollered so that those behind him could hear him, “HIPPY HO!†the others picking up the chant.
