Ride Share Does It Again

So, getting in and out of Ashland, Oregon has its problems. Our town is dead in the middle of nowhere. It is five hours to Portland (small city) and six to San Francisco by car. In the winter the mountain passes are often closed because of snow and for much of the year the nearest airport can be fogged in and that causes huge delays. Also the Medford, Oregon airport can be really expensive , I guess because it is in the middle of nowhere. I must not to neglect to remind you that the train doesn't come near us and the regular bus picks up in Medford at two in the morning. Not convenient is an understatement.

I have written before about my experiment of not owning a car. I am away half the year. I like not having the expense and hassle of owning a car. One drawback is that renting a car when you don't have your own insurance is expensive. But renting a car in the middle of nowhere is really pricey. I, therefore have had find other solutions. The most interesting one by far is the ride share gig.

This week I wanted to come to Portland. There wasn't much on Criag's List but one possibility popped up at the last minute. Dewey was offering a ride for a share for gas $. We emailed back and forth and I was going to meet him at the local hot springs hippie encampment. I was very happy to be going north as we had had a brutal heat wave with consecutive days of 106 degrees. Also some terrible fires were filling the valley with smoke and it was getting worse, not better.

I packed up, said goodbye to my garden which would or would not get water depending on who was around the house and my Greeley drove me to Wellsprings. Dewey showed up pretty much on time and had a nice new hybrid car. Dewey looked pretty sane and sober and was very polite. This was the first time he was offering a ride share. He had been driving from Kansas and had stopped in Oregon for a Festival (I don't exactly know what that means except it was in the great pot growing town of Selma). I think he was bored of driving alone.

I hope I can do justice to our little adventure. He said we were picking up two girls. No one appeared. He made a few phone calls and said "they are here." Soon after these two gorgeous, young girls came dancing and singing down through the camp grounds. They were dressed in harem meets tie dye meets cowgirl style. They were dusty but not smelly dirty. They were followed by a bunch of men and some families with small children...all dancing and singing. We went to a school bus at the far end of the camp to pick up their shit where Dewey and I were subjected to more than a half an hour of being kisses and hugged and danced over and around by the collected troupe. Then we were invited to the Goddess chapel to get blessed. We demurred but not before Dewey mentioned that he had hurt his shoulder.

The one French girl said "Oh my God we must get going, we have do much healing to do." It only took another 20 minutes of kissing and blessing and chanting to get us in the car. As soon as we started to drive, French girl (Charlotte) got out her didgeridoo and placed it up to Dewey's shoulder and started honking on it. Wisconsin girl (no name) sang harmonics. "Vibrations have energy!!!!! We are healing you!!!I know your shoulder is better!!! Thank the Goddess!!! Let us chant together, no first I'll sing Ave Maria." Charlotte sang one of the most beautiful Ave Marias I have ever heard. Then they settled down to a two hour chant to make the rain come and put out the fires, accompanies by a ukulele and recorder. We had to stop several times for Dewey to take out his high tech car adapted tea brewing apparatus and make his peppermint tea from mint leaves from Zambia or Tunisia or somewhere. We all watched each time as the water changed to tea and uttered profuse praise for the blessings from the goddess and the miracle of life and the abundance of the earth. Talking about abundance, "look" cried Charlotte, "someone gifted me this miracle I will never be hungry again." She brought out a zucchini from her purse shuffling away the water colors she was using to paint a mandala.

Stay tuned. The drive gets better and better. I kid you not.