One of my Americorps teammates is an ex-hippy, having recently (December) traveled throughout the Southwest with a group called the Rainbow Kids. She split off from them in Taos, New Mexico, and hitchhiked her way to Colorado to catch the plane for Maryland.
Recently, she invited me to join the Rainbow Kids with her after Americorps is finished; she’s considering rejoining and I’m currently pondering. She had lots of, shall we say, interesting experiences while on the road with the Rainbow Kids.
So, have any Dopers ever traveled with the Rainbow Kids or similar groups? They hold an annual Gathering that’s supposed to be something to see, at least according to my teammate.
I casually knew a couple of them waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back, gosh, 'round about 1993 or so. One of the guys was the boyfriend of my suite mate in Upward Bound. (Boy, that was an interesting summer.)
Nice people. Peaceful hippy types that smoked a LOT of pot. Wouldn’t hurt a fly, though. I even remember the name of one of them, he went by Flutterby.
I personally wouldn’t do it, but if you’re young and have no responsibilities and you’re into that kind of thing, why not? Just be careful and always have enough money to get home stashed away in case the happy hippy vibe goes sour.
Peaceful to each other, maybe. Not so much to the environment They leave a lot of environmental damage behind.
After the Rainbow, Legal Affairs
They’ve come to Colorado recently and the effect on the environment was huge.
*“We leave the land in better shape than when we find it,” insists the woman from the Chevy—something most Rainbows sincerely believe. “Sure we may stomp on some vegetation,” says a stoned 18-year-old guy who hasn’t slept in 36 hours. “But this public land needs to become more public. It only takes, like, three or four months for it to recover.” Some of the Rainbows care less about the ghost town—at a town-hall meeting in Watersmeet, one claimed that the town wasn’t worth protecting because it had been built by white settlers rather than Native Americans. *