On the Run and On Acid, Part One: Abandoned House on a Mountain, Deep in the Oregon Forest
The last time John and I had an experience with acid was about a year ago, when we were on the run in southern Oregon. We were staying in a small sized mountainous logging town in Southern Oregon, with people who knew of our situation but were offering us a temporary place to stay. We ended up with them because of a family member, who had promised us high paying cannabis work when we showed up and actually delivered nothing but a place to stay. The several months we spent on this "farm" were interesting to say the least, although we did end up with some good things from there, like Rebel Dog.
Today's story is set on a day sometime in October, while it was still relatively warm. At the time John and I were living in a tent purchased by family after I got out of jail on the edge of their property. We didn't have Rebel Dog yet, but were in negotiations to get him at the time. Partially due to the fact that we were on the west coast infamous for it's acid and psychadelic mushrooms, we both had an urge to trip. It had also been years since we both had done anything of that sort. Considering we had been arrested and at that point were on the run, we wanted one of these experiences for the way they make you think, there were things we were both looking to explore with a different perspective.
We were talking about our desire to trip openly with the people on the property. Several people on the property claimed they were skilled in finding and preserving psychadelic mushrooms. We ended up in Oregon right around the time of year for mushrooms, although from my understanding it's easier to find psychadelic mushrooms in the Northern part of the state. One person on the property reportedly got the whole....I guess you could call it a commune, that's essentially what it was...high off of some mushrooms he picked and preserved in honey. That was apparently the year before and they had a little left. We were all planning on splitting these, hoping they'd work despite the fact that they were showing signs of having lost their psychoactive properties.
Around this time of day, one of the property members came out with some acid he had been saving for a special occasion. He said he could have a few to spare for John and I if we wanted them. Another person on the property, the son of the owner that we were friends with, asked if he could and basically got the response that he could do it now or with everyone else like planned. He decided to try and eat all of the mushrooms we were discussing just minutes before, hopefully to get a trip. It ended up just being me, John and a property hippy, we'll call D.
We had D cut us off our doses, which we placed on or under our tongue. We waited with anticipation, doing some dabs and discussing any plans for the night. I'm not sure exactly who brought it up, but we had been on and off been talking about a rumored abandoned house at the top of the mountain behind the house we were living. A neighbor had told us that the man that lived there went crazy and is in a mental hospital. He said it was a cool house though, worth checking out. We later found out his daughter has control of the property now and has just left it to waste away, to the condition we eventually found it. Anyway, someone brought up that house and being a sucker for abandoned houses(we were at an abandoned house when arrested, checking it out to see if we could buy it) we said we wanted to see it.
It was about 5pm at that time, so we made a plan to go up there and see what's there. We packed a bag that included water, snacks, weed and everything we needed to dab. With final dabs, we headed off into the forest behind the property. At this point, we were about 20 minutes into the trip and I was already beginning to notice slight visual effects. Our friend who had taken the mushrooms noticed no effect, and expected not to but he accompanied us as he wanted to see the house too.
We got deeper into the forest and I was floored by it's beauty. I'm sad I don't have pictures of the forests I adventured in Oregon(I also regret not photographing my whole on the run trip, now that I'm writing about it). They had a very haunting gorgeous quality to them and it added to the atmosphere of the trip that was starting. We were surrounded by trees and molds and lichens like usnea, my favorite. I picked up a freshly fallen piece off the forest floor and brought it up to my face. I pulled on two ends of one strand, to expose the rubbery elasticy center. The usnea lichen stretched, just like it always does when it's fresh, but the visual effect was greatly exaggerated by the beginning effects of the trip. I showed the usnea to D, who was surprised at the effect too.
About this time we were joined by Jackson, a pit bull German shepard mix who "belonged" to someone on the property. I had been a fan of that dog since I first pulled on the property and he came running to see who was there. He had a strong pack obsession and spent his day going from person to person on the property, making sure they were okay and that they were where they always were. He would poke his head in anywhere if he thought one of his pack(which included everyone who frequented the property) might be inside, this included neighbors properties. Noticing we had just taken something and disappeared into the forest as evening was approaching, Jackson decided he was coming on this trip. We tried to send him back but we quickly realized it was futile as we knew Jackson was hell bent on making sure we made it back okay. We had been told stories about him already, and knew better than to try and tell him to go back, he wasn't going to. He wasn't even directly with us the whole time, but I swear just about every time I wondered where he was he showed himself, even if it was in the distance.
We climbed higher and higher on the mountain until we came up on a driveway like pathway with a really cool house a bit off in the distance. I've drawn it out from memory with John's help, shown above. There were old rotting piles of firewood all over the property as we approached the house. I was instantly excited as I was missing Detroit and its abandoned properties. We went into the house which was just like any abandoned house in Detroit, only it was on a mountain in Oregon. There were personal items, mostly picture and other things with no economic value. It was clear people had been all throughout that house, especially considering the place had few doors and even fewer windows at this point. There was an old motorhome in front of the house, picked apart by tweakers(meth addicts of the area) over the years. The place was in extreme disrepair, seeminly forgot about once it's owner and builder was committed.
We looked for the route upstairs and found some extremely steep stairs. We went up them carefully and were emptied out in the top room featured in the drawing. It had huge windows on all four sides that made all three of the lower roofs easily accessible. The roof tops were flat too, probably too flat for that part of Oregon, but it made them nice to hang out on. We were all coming into our trips and decided that it was the perfect place to dab. As I was getting into my first dab we started noticing the sounds of vehicles. I was feeling the effects of the acid more than anyone else that was there and I freaked out a little. To me it sounded like vehicles were speeding up to the house, which was all too similar to the situation I was arrested in.
Then it hit me, it probably always sounded like there were cars approaching the house with the way the sound from the road echoed up the valley. We speculated that had an effect on the man going crazy, he might have thought someone was always after him, even if they were just speeding down the road below him. The logging road the house was on did have some traffic, although it was sporadic. The reality was that no one knew I was there and that I was fine and I was able to quickly see that. Jackson rejoined us, receiving a dab before running back out of the house and into the forest.
We all came into our trips at that house, adventuring through someone's former life, discussing why he went mad. We were discussing what it would take to make the place liveable, just in case we needed an emergency place to stay. We had a place, but we were essentially staying with communists who did not have to seem to have an appreciation for our capitalistic nature. Honestly it would have been an amazing place to live, had I not been on the run I would have been trying to contact the daughter of the guy who build it, to offer to take it off her hands. Although all things considered, I may not have ended up there had I not been on the run.
At this point I was pretty far into the trip, with the desire to head back before it got too late. It was starting to get late. I consider myself directionally challenged and I wasn't confident that I could get back to the property before it got too dark to see in the woods. I didn't have an interest at staying in the house all night as it was honestly a gloomy place as it stood, currently trashed and a shell of what it once was. We saw pictures of it before it fell apart, and it was a pretty amazing place to live.
We ended up heading back, essentially running down the mountain we had just climbed up not that long before. The forest was becoming dark. When I started to feel anxiety at being able to find my way, Jackson ran up beside me. He sped off further and veered off to the left as if to show the way. We ran down, avoiding trees until we eventually stumbled into more familiar woods. Jackson was in sight most of the time, although sometimes he was a decent distance away from us. We were in the woods to the side of the house, about to re-enter the property we were staying at. Jackson rejoined us as we came back, and we all headed to the smoke room, the designated dabbing room.
I'll end the story here, as the rest of the trip is a story in itself. I was somewhat shaken but I'm glad I went. We spent a lot of time in the dab room after we returned, which will be shared in another post. This trip was one of most party like in setting I ever remember having an acid trip being. In the past, my trips generally involved one to two other people, generally close friends. There were between 12-15 people living on that property at any one time, which made it like a party. John and I both have mixed feelings on this trip. It felt great, was a great experience. My only headache came from smiling too much, which is actually something that causes me pain because of my jaw. We tried to apprehend one more dose each after, to do just ourselves, as we really didn't quite get the acid experience we were looking for.
John and I use acid and other things of that nature occasionally to allow ourselves to look at our lives from a different often more creative and empathetic perspective. This acid experience is worth writing about as it is memorable, however it was disconnected intellectually due to the setting. I found myself retreating by myself to the bathroom, just for a minute to think about things, privately. Save for John I didn't trust most of the people there, so I didn't really want to be sharing the things I was trying to think about. I'd always bring myself back to where John and whoever else was around happened to be. I hope my next experience is with acid of similar quality, maybe here in Acapulco or somewhere else beautiful in Mexico during the day. The one want that trip left me with was for a desire to try it outside once, to experience the visual effects during the day, something I've heard is a completely different experience.