Marshall bit his lower lip. He looked pensively at the cigarette burning down almost to his dirty, uncut fingernails. He looked up and smiled, this idiotic look on his face framing his yellow teeth, and quipped, "Hey amigo, unexpected journeys are like dancing lessons from God, don't look so glum!"

Leave it to Marshall to quote Kurt Vonnegut while we're standing in the train station in Oklahoma City. I'm sweaty, hungry, and a little sleepy, while he spits out lines from literature.

Marshall and I went to college together. We met as neighbors in a residence hall at Tulsa University, and later we got our own pad down 34th Street, a few minutes away from campus. Before we knew it, four years had passed and there we were, two graduates with the world before them who didn't really know where to go. Almost at random, we hopped a train to San Francisco.

I had my doubts. After four years of college, I had concluded that my good buddy Marshall, was, to put it mildly, absolutely nuts. I didn't know what to expect when he brought up the idea of San Francisco and I was reluctant to go with him, but he threatened to tell my girlfriend what we did in Vegas last spring break. I knew he would do it and I still liked my girlfriend. I had no choice. I was going with him on the train.

I was in the Amtrak car, my fingers deep into a can of Pringles. Marshall was like a little kid. "Hey man! we're like in that Kerouac book, 'On The Road', don't you think? Two righteous dharma bums traveling across America. Isn't this cool? Can't wait till we get to Denver, man."

I remember Denver, for many reasons. You can see the snow-capped Rockies from pretty much anywhere in and around the city. That's not something you forget. I also remember when Marshall mooned a few construction workers on the side of a railroad crossing as our train passed by. They weren't too amused.

The train rumbled west relentlessly. Morning became night, night became morning, and somewhere I kind of drifted in and out of reality. Only the changing scenery held my interest. As we snaked through Wyoming, the landscape took on an out-of-this-world appearance. Marshall noticed, too. "Hey dude, this is where they filmed a few science fiction movies. Looks pretty spooky, eh?"

Wyoming was nothing but flat desolation for miles on either side, interrupted by table-like rock formations that shot up out of the flatness like apartment blocks. The rocks changed color. Pink turned into a greenish brown which blended into a bluish gray. This wasn't a train, it was a rocket that had hurtled us over some strange planet.

We left alien Wyoming and descended into parched Arizona. The hot, dry desert felt like an oven. "This is America man, a land of plenty, built out of nothing, absolute desolation that's been made into a metropolis, lonely, yet so crowded, this is where it all started, from the cactus to capitalism."

Bright sunshine welcomed us to California. Until we'd reach San Francisco, I could only judge it from the train but it the variation of its environments captivated me after the sameness that Wyoming and Arizona had each offered. We left green forests for dry brown scrub, then entered pine trees and redwoods. It was beautiful, accentuated by Marshall whistling "This Land is your Land". We finally pulled into the circus known as the city of San Francisco.

The Golden Gate bridge looked like an orange walking stick some giant had dropped across the bay's entrance. In the distance, Alcatraz looked as dangerous as its reputation. Haight-Ashbury was a treat. The legendary neighborhood that had been home to beat poets and young hippies in the 1960s still buzzed with sounds of music, youth, and love. We passed gray-headed people with welcoming smiles and flowers in their hair, who might have been sitting in the same spot for twenty years. I took pictures of massive murals dedicated to Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. Yes, San Francisco was alive!

We spent four days drenching ourselves in West Coast debauchery. "So comrade, did you enjoy the trip?", Marshall asked as we rode back to the train station by tram on the sharply inclined streets of the city.

I nodded. This was our last trip together, before we had to grow up and venture out from under the protective umbrella of college, out into the cruel, bland, real world.

"This is the end, beautiful friend, the end...", Marshall belted out. I couldn't help but laugh as the words of Jim Morrison closed an unforgettable chapter in both our lives.