By Kaya Bailey
Photos courtesy of Aaron Bailey
Aaron Bailey loves to explore nature and cool towns. He loves music and finding it in the places he visits, and it makes the trip even better when it is with his friends. That’s why in 1993 he decided to bring 3 of his high school best friends and take his red 1987 VW bus around the U.S. As he says, they wanted to do this because they “wanted to drive around the country, create a fun ski trip, go see The Grateful Dead, backpack, and just see the
country.” The first place he and his friends ventured to was the South.
They began by going to Louisiana, but didn’t mean to go as far as the edge of New Orleans. They tried a few times to get into the city, but each time were unsuccessful, so they took the bus towards Texas. The first “real” or interesting location they went to was Taos, New Mexico. There were many interesting things in Taos, but Bailey’s personal favorite was sleeping at the base of the ski area (legally), which created something close to a ski-in/ski-out scene. He also loved the South-western/Indian vibe of old town Taos.
Guys can be messy, and one of the most difficult things about road-tripping with 4 guys in a small space for 6 months, according to Bailey, was “getting on each other’s nerves, fitting in the van, agreeing on where to go, dealing with the van breaking down, and definitely the stress of parking.” Since the van was almost out of space, they had to pull over on the side of the road and get rid of a ton of stuff, and ship a ton more back home due to over-packing. The group’s favorite place they visited was Whistler, Canada. Here, they saw the huge scale of the mountains (which were super fun to ski according to Bailey), and they really enjoyed the amazing vibe and layout of the village. Bailey really treasured doing this with his friends because going that far north into Canada felt like “such an adventure”, and skiing on harder terrain was fun for everyone.
As mentioned before, Bailey loves music. He saw a few different bands during this trip, but his most memorable was The Jerry Garcia Band in 1993 at the Warfield in San Francisco. A close second was in Oakland, California, when they went to the Mardi Gras Grateful Dead show. This show is a Chinese New Year-type event, and at that time they hosted a special, intricate parade with floats, a marching band; it is overall just a “huge elaborate event, and was even more unique/special than a regular Dead show.” He loved these performances because of how unique and fun they were; the group had never experienced something so unexpected. The lack of internet and technology added to the fun of the trip, as you never knew what you would get when you went to new places. After a while of driving around and exploring, Bailey and his friends were talking about how far they had come. Someone threw out, “hey, imagine if we went to Hawaii,” and that sparked an idea in Bailey. He found $150 plane tickets and off they went to Hawaii. When they arrived, they expected to be right on the beach. Instead, they landed in the city of Honolulu. They looked very out of place with their big backpacks in the middle of
the city, but they hitchhiked to Waikiki.
After talking to some locals, they were told to get on the around-the-island bus and head to the North Shore. They then began to go up and around the North Shore, sleeping on tons of beaches and going to lots of parties, as well as meeting many locals. It’s illegal to sleep on the beaches, so the friends had to be stealthy and tuck themselves into the trees to stay hidden. They tried to body-surf on the Bonsai Pipeline but instead kept getting pummeled into the beach by the steep waves. Bailey remembers snorkeling in one or two places, as well as renting a Jeep for a few days and accidentally getting it stuck inland. Bailey says, “it gets hard to remember all the details since it was so long ago, but it was just awesome living freely out of a backpack on the beach”.
Bailey loves this road trip so much, and he thinks that “everyone should take the opportunity to take their trip in their early 20s or so. It’s just a time to go explore, and you will never have as little responsibilities as you will then. People go to all sorts of places, and you can choose to explore anywhere you want.” Listening to him talk about it is great, and he himself loves chatting about it because it was such a fun experience. Throughout long talks and drives, music performances, and spontaneous choices, a fun, memorable time in all of his and his friends’ lives was created. This trip is so interesting because it was such a special journey for him, and the idea of Bailey spending so much time doing fun things that he loves with the people he loves is amazing.
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