"Sequoia/Fresno"

This recalls another moment from the Miracle Room American tour in 1990, when we again chose to take a breather from the tour in nature.

We had played at the Casbah in San Diego, somehow managing to get our massive pile of stuff onto that tiny stage. Then we had a night off before our next show in Fresno, so we opted to drive to Sequoia National Park to spend the night. Only problem: we had zero camping gear, so we sat in the van all night. I may have gotten an hour of sleep total.

As the sun came up and we drove to the park headquarters to see what we could scrounge for breakfast, I realized I would never make it to the show that night in Fresno. There would be no time or place to take a nap. So after “breakfast”, I decided to do the only thing I could do to stay awake that long. Yep, I took some acid.

We drove around among the giant redwoods, taking in the familiar points of interest: the General Sherman Tree, Moro Rock, the Tunnel Tree. We found an overlook to view Kings Canyon. I had my Fisher-Price PXL-2000 pixel video camera, and since I was not driving this time, I held it out the passenger window and tripped out on the trees going by upside down. I’ve always had a certain rapport with trees under these conditions, having had many illuminating telepathic conversations with them over the years. In this particular situation, the redwoods were singing as a choir!

In the late afternoon, we drove into Fresno, met the promoters and their friends, had dinner and played an out-of-this-world show for the few people who made it out.