In the summer of 1969 my boyfriend and I, like lots of other hippies, decided to take a road trip. From a carpenter we bought a used van with wooden cubbies in the back hold his tools and supplies. They would serve just fine for our kitchen pantry. I made Indian-print curtains to cover the windows, and we were off to California.

When the van’s starter broke, we figured out how to crank the engine by connecting a wire directly to the solenoid. Then, in Oklahoma, one of the tires exploded. We happened to have two clean-cut young hitchhikers with us at the time. As we all sat on the side of the highway a police car pulled up. Seeing my boyfriend’s shoulder-length hair, and my pink halter top and cutoff jeans, the officer asked to search our van. We politely refused and he went back to his car to get a warrant.

I know now that no judge was going to issue a warrant on a Sunday for four kids with a flat tire, but none of us knew it then. Frantically, we retrieved our stash of pills from the box of Quaker Oats in the “pantry,” and the four of us took to swallowing—I’ll take a green and a yellow; gimme a blue one; hand me those three red ones.

Having failed to obtain a warrant, the police officer returned and told us we were free to go. By that time we’d taken all the pills.

The sleepless night that followed is a blur. I only know we somehow fixed the flat and made it to a campground. But I’ll never forget when we stopped for gas. My boyfriend successfully navigated the van to the pumps and an attendant filled the tank. Driving away was not going to be straightforward, given how stoned he was. My boyfriend leaned his head out the window, and in all seriousness asked, “How do we get out of here?”

“Very carefully,” the attendant said without missing a beat. “Very carefully.”