Oh Wow!
What an amazing journey!
On Friday, April 4th, five young adventurers (including myself) drove up to La Honda to try to visit Ken Kesey's legendary house. I intentionally say "try to visit," because the house is not a museum but a privately owned home. On our way there, we did not know what to expect, but were prepared for everything. We hardly had a plan in mind, and decided that La Honda would show us the way. We knew we were headed in the right direction when we past a road with the best name ever - Tripp Rd. This marked the start of our adventure.
When my friends Lukey, Jonas, Tess, Julian and I drove into La Honda, we immediately fell in love with the tiny town surrounded by redwoods. La Honda in just one long street, and the whole "downtown" consists of a country market and a bar - the famous Applejack's. The sense of the community is really strong in La Honda, where everyone knows and looks out for each other. The country market actually has a lot of locally produced or packaged food, and it is sold under the label "La Honda Country Market."
The house does not have a fence around it, but it is separated from the road by the creek. There is a gate on the bridge that leads into the house, and it does not have a lock - only a chain to prevent it from opening.The Acid Tests that took place here in the 60's were parties where everyone was enjoying themselves on LSD, and those gathrings were also very open and welcoming. Weird and talented people would come out to La Honda and explore their creative potential while on acid. Ken Kesey himself wrote parts of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest on the walls in the bathroom of this house, and also painted flowers on the toilet ("The Acid Test Chronicles").
My friends and I were surprised by how open and event inviting the place was... So we decided to go past the gate, knock on the door, and talk to the owners! However, no one was home :( We then walked around the house and explored the backyard of the current owners, who we figured were hippies just like us. Artifacts in the yard:
What an amazing journey!
On Friday, April 4th, five young adventurers (including myself) drove up to La Honda to try to visit Ken Kesey's legendary house. I intentionally say "try to visit," because the house is not a museum but a privately owned home. On our way there, we did not know what to expect, but were prepared for everything. We hardly had a plan in mind, and decided that La Honda would show us the way. We knew we were headed in the right direction when we past a road with the best name ever - Tripp Rd. This marked the start of our adventure.
When my friends Lukey, Jonas, Tess, Julian and I drove into La Honda, we immediately fell in love with the tiny town surrounded by redwoods. La Honda in just one long street, and the whole "downtown" consists of a country market and a bar - the famous Applejack's. The sense of the community is really strong in La Honda, where everyone knows and looks out for each other. The country market actually has a lot of locally produced or packaged food, and it is sold under the label "La Honda Country Market."
Even though I am not 21, I got to go inside Applejack's with Tess, because we needed to use the bathroom :) The bar is all wooden and home-like on the inside. Here is a picture of me and Lukey with a grand totem in front of of Applejack's!
My friends and I were really impressed by how environmentally conscious and community oriented the residents of La Honda are.
We quickly realized that there was no service in La Honda, so looking up Ken Kesey's address was not an option. We drove up to a nearby book/general store that Tess told us about, and asked for the directions to the house there. Everyone around La Honda is friendly and willing to help you, and the lady at the store happily told us that the house was just down the road, over a bridge, and that it is a little wooden cabin by the creek.
We found it easily, and all jumped in excitement at the view of the home base of the Merry Pranksters and the place where Acid Tests first originated! This is where Ken Kesey and his friends, the Pranksters, would hop on their magical psychedelic-looking "Further" bus and go on crazy trips to Berkeley, the Haight, and other far away lands... ("Pranksters' Home Base on the Block")
We walked around on the other side of the creek from the house, looking at banana slugs, ferns and the house itself.
This is the cabin!
Here is me, Lukey, Jonas and Tess holding banana slugs :)
And this is just me with a leaf on my head with the house in the background.
My friends and I were surprised by how open and event inviting the place was... So we decided to go past the gate, knock on the door, and talk to the owners! However, no one was home :( We then walked around the house and explored the backyard of the current owners, who we figured were hippies just like us. Artifacts in the yard:
Me on the porch :)
We were bummed out that the owners weren't home, but we ran into their neighbors after we left the property and were wondering around the creek by the house. They asked us what we were doing, and we told them that we wanted to visit the house but no one was home. They said that they were just looking out for their neighbors and that they knew the owners. We introduced ourselves and found out that their names were Michael and Cindy. They told us that Terry Adams, the owner of Ken Kesey's old house, would be happy to give us a tour, and gave us his number!! Michael also said that he knew Ken Kesey back in the sixties when he lived in La Honda!
We asked Michael and Cindy about a cool place where we could hike, and they told us the directions to Heritage Grove. It is a beautiful redwood forest with some old growth in it. We found out that some trees in the forest have been marked to be logged in 1974, but the public protested the logging and preserved the land.
We hiked for a couple of hours, and even got to he Hiker's hut. That place is the property of the Sierra Club and can be reserved for use by the members of the club and the public. Here are some pictures from the hike:
After the hike, we had some delicious pizza at the country market. It was in the range of the best pizzas I've ever had, no joke.
My phone died on the hike (technology sucks), so we could not access the number of the owner of the house anymore. However, we did not give up, and decided to stop by the house again. When we drove by, we saw a car on the property, so we immediately parked and went straight in. We knocked on the door and a lady opened it. We told her that we came to La Honda to check out Ken Kesey's old house and were wondering if she would tell us about it. She was busy with some work, but said that we should come in anyway. We could not believe our luck!!!
As we later found out, the woman's name was Eva Adams. She said that her husband is the real expert on the history of the house, but he wasn't home, so she gave us a little tour. Eva told us that they completely reconstructed the house in 1998 after a massive flood, and showed us an awesome collage of what the original house looked like (my phone was dead at this point so these pictures were taken by my friend Lukey):
Eva told us that her husband and her knew Ken Kesey! Kesey and the Pranksters visited the house in 1999 after it was rebuilt, and brought their lovely bus with them. Eva showed us pictures from their visit - the bus in front of the house, Kesey, some of the Pranksters. I will post videos from our little tour of the house in a separate post :)
Although the house was a complete mess after the flood, the owners managed to recreate it and save some of the original parts. Ken Kesey's white piano painted in neon colors still stands in the living room. It has some really trippy collages on its sides, with the Indian god Ganesha on the left side and thousands of eyes on the right.
There are also some original signs on the walls made by the Pranksters. One of them reads "Everything will be alright tomorrow... Maybe," and the other "Hells Angel I Am." Eva also showed us an original door that Kesey and the Pranksters decorated with different cut-out images. It seems like they were really digging the idea of cutting out pictures and pasting them on objects during their Acid Tests. Eva said that those doors were everywhere in the house but only one remains now.
Eva said that their house is mentioned in the book The Visionary State: A Journey through California's Spiritual Landscape, which has the coolest places in it! That's a great guide for future road trips. Eva gave us her husband Terry's contact information so that we can ask him any other questions.
We left the cabin completely shocked by the owners' hospitality and by the fact that we could get into the legendary house in the first place. On the way back, we kept asking each other whether our trip to the house was real, because it was just so amazing and magical. This trip was definitely a dream come true! One can never know where the reality ends and the dreamworld begins, and with that I would like to conclude the tale of our epic journey.
Citations:
"Pranksters' Home Base on the Block" http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Pranksters-Home-Base-On-the-Block-Kesey-2838522.php
"The Acid Test Chronicles" http://www.postertrip.com/public/5593.cfm
