The Further Bus left La Honda on June 14, 1964, about 3 PM. First stop, on Kesey’s bridge, out of gas! Made it about 100 feet!
In 1964, Ken Kesey and his group of “Merry Pranksters,” fueled by LSD and a free-wheeling spirit of adventure, painted a 1939 International Harvester school bus in DayGlo colors and piloted it across the US on a trip that would go down in history as a cultural milestone. The bus, dubbed “Further” (or “Furthur,” varying by day and mood), was purchased largely with Ken’s earnings from the publication of his best-selling novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Tom Wolfe’s popular 1968 account of the trip and the bus, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, would go on to cement Furthur and the Pranksters as cultural icons signaling broad changes in American society.
More than any other work of art, the bus represents the sweeping changes that came over the country in the 60s. As people began to question traditional values and means of expression, Furthur stood as a highly visible representation of a new brand of American freedom.
In a highly positive and meaningful way, its whimsical character became a metaphor for a new brand of psychedelic exploration. While the Pranksters, themselves, bridged the gap between the Beats and Hippies, the bus was a physical manifestation of the idea of a psychedelic trip.
