If your not familiar with ALD-52 its probably because its pretty rare.
"ALD-52, also known as 1-acetyl-LSD, is a chemical analogue of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). It was originally discovered by Albert Hofmann but was not widely studied until the rise in popularity of psychedelics in the 1960s." Wikipedia
In my youth I was quite the Psychonaut and out of the hundreds of trips I had one stands out among them all. Not only was it one of the most intense it was one of my earlier trips.
It was the late 70's, a time of bell bottom jeans, disco and Star Wars. I was all of 15 years old. I had already taken LSD and mushrooms a few times. My best friend and I decided to go camping in Big Sur and trip. This took some planning. First we had to get my mom not only to agree to let us go camping alone in Big Sur but to drive us and pick us up. After some discussion and some fibbing we got permission and we set a weekend to go. Now we needed some LSD.
Back then in the 70's we would go down to the mall in Santa Cruz and seek out the nicest hippy we would find to score. Back then the mall was still fun, music blared from The Copper House to the sounds of Warmth on the weekends. People danced in the street. The counter culture was still very much alive and blossoming.
You could either score from the thugs at the buss station or find a nice hippy. We always opted for option two. If you couldn't score on the mall you could walk to the park where there were dozens of drum circles. Finding LSD was never really an issue. Good LSD then had names I remember like Ohm Tabs, and or course Mickey Mouse and Goofy blotter. And if you could find it, Green Pyramid Gel tabs were the ticket you wanted.
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But we had a set back. We were unable to score. The police had recently cracked down and all the dealers were on edge. We decided to go camping anyways and if it was meant to be it was meant to be.
My mom drove us from Santa Cruz to Andrew Molera State Park where you could camp for only .50 cents back then. She had no clue what we had planned. It was just a short hike to the beach from the campsites. We setup our tent. My mom had over packed food. We had enough to feed an army if they ate cereal and peanut butter. My mom checked out our site gave us some stern warnings and we were left alone. Once settled we decided to take a walk. Within minutes we both spotted some folks smoking a joint. I looked at my friend Ted and at once we both knew this was it. I'm not sure how we knew but we did. We approached them and said hi. They shared their joint with us and we told them our plan and our plight. There was one woman with a vile hanging from her neck. She told us she could help us. I knew she could. We offered money and she laughed and said maybe we could trade some food so they could stay longer. Great! We made plans to meet at the beach before sunset.
That evening we walked to the beach with boxes of Capt Crunch and bananas in hand. There on the beach hanging around a large log were the group of people we had planned to meet. We gave them the food and they seemed pleased. She told us to open our mouths and she dropped 4 drops on each of our tongues. It was then that she told us it wasn't LSD. " wait what!" I thought. She told us not to worry it was ALD 52 and was similar but wouldn't last as long. So with no choice we thanked them and began walking.
About 15 minutes later I remember my friend saying " I don't feel anything yet." I replied I did not either. Suddenly my friend stopped looked around and said. " Oh my god I see my mother everywhere I look, in every tree, in every flower even in the sky." I wasn't feeling it yet and started to tell him that when suddenly I saw his mother too, driving this old yellow buss they had through the sky waving at me. The buss was an old British ambulance that was bright yellow and nicknamed The Banana Slug. This image in the sky of her driving and waving was very vivid.
My friend Ted looked at his arm and told me to do the same. Our arm hairs were moving and emitting light. It was then I noticed everything was moving. the tree branches seemed like they were growing. If I looked at a flower bud it would blossom. The vines were creeping and we were only 20 minutes into our trip. We took a side trail to keep away from people. My friend looked at me and said. "I'm not freaking out but I don't know who we are or where we are. " I thought for a second and realized I had no idea either. Now I knew he was my best friend. Yet I had no idea his name or mine or where we were physically located. Yet we still had common sense. I told him I was in the same boat I knew we were friends hiking but I had no idea who or where we were. We decided it would be best to go back the way we came from in hope something would jar our memory. I looked up at the mountains. One looked like mount Everest to me. But I suddenly recognized it. I said OK" Your Ted i'm Tim and were in Big Sur tripping. Phew that was close. Little did we know this was just the beginning of three trips we would partake in that weekend that we would never forget. Before the end one of us would claim to have seen God.
Stay tuned for Part II
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