In this chronicle about life on the hippie trail, W. M. Raebeck provides a funky flashback to what now seems an easier era. Through her marginal feats and misadventures, you'll always be siding with the bad guy. Questionable conduct here takes a back seat to innocence, naivete, rites of passage, and even desperation. The author's exploits reveal, too, that perennial determination of the young—every generation's instinct to define itself and its time.

In a kaleidoscope of back roads, airplanes, boats, and trains, this is a sometimes funny, sometimes edgy story of a bold young woman finding her way through life and love. Packed with punchy dialogue, outlandish schemes, and eclectic love affairs, this could only be that one breathless moment of history—now fading into our past—that is great fun to revisit.

Boomers will grok these free-wheelin' recollections of long-haired days when hitch-hikers had to wait their turn for space on the on-ramp. And readers of every age will be reminded that the youthful spirit is timeless, and harrowing ordeals are just bends in the road.

Hippie freaks, where are you now?