Mardi Gras 1981, 7 Rabbit (Cookie and Carla, not you Lester) and Tortoise buses behind the Brewery in Jackson Square circle-parked wagon train style, speakers blaring, dancing and partying into the morning listening to Jim Carroll “All the People Who Died, died, they were all my friends, no wonder they died.”
I woke up passed out on the tracks, nitrous burns on one hand and a bottle of Tangueray in the other. Perfect candidate to get rolled, but my karma was in the black and I lived to sip and sup another cafe au lait and beignet.
I drove the Grey Rabbit back in 1981-82. Cookie showed me how to drive the bus one morning in Iowa, heading into the big red sun coming up over the steamy cornfields. Love you Cookie! That was the beginning of my Big Adventure in Life, which is still going on even though I have respectable jobs now. Yes, drivers drove 12 hour shifts. The drivers’s bunk got lots of action. Besides teaching me to drive large motor vehicles, Cookie also showed me how to pick up girls.
The whole thing came to an end in New York City. Cookie and Lester were both using the Grey Rabbit name, but Lester had a secret weapon. At the pickup point by Penn Station our bus was mobbed by beautiful, young and very angry German girls wearing purple pajamas – disciples of the Baghwan – and Lester! you dont know what a cult is about until you’ve had to face the hippy furies.
I am so glad to read you are well, or at least were back in 2007, Cook. Take care and God bless, hope our paths will cross one more time…
Caught grey rabbit SFO to seattle 1981,remember Yukon jack bourbon,Paul Masson wine n hit springs in Oregon.most travelers were heading to rainbow peace festival in Washington state.stayed with Kathy in Seattle,an employee of the grey rabbit company,great memories !
Jerry Liebrandt
Rode the rabbit from SF to NYC in the summer of 81′.The guys from Maine were running the trip. We made an unplanned visit to the grand canyon for two days. I was living on a communal farm in Mendocino at the time. I was traveling with an orange cat in a cage, bringing it back east for my sister.
grayrabbitbus 
Me and buddy took the bus from Manhattan to Boulder CO. in the summer of ‘81. I remember it being pretty packed, and spent most of time sitting in the entrance well for the front door, along with a Black Lab. We stopped at swimming hole some place in the Midwest, can’t remember where though. Big bear of a guy driving. I woke up in the middle of the night during a rain storm, and windshield wipers weren’t working, but that didn’t seem to faze him and we drove right through it. We were told no smoking cigarettes, but joints were ok. Reason being cigarette will keep on burning, where nobody will let a joint go out. We were the only two to get out in Boulder. Great time, great ride. We backpacked and hitchhiked around Colorado for a month, headed to CA. and My buddy back to Jersey. What a awesome time to be 21 years old.