Ken Kesey's School Bus Returns to San Francisco

Ken Kesey's school bus—once painted in bright, swirly colors and driven across the country on a psychedelic journey—is back in San Francisco after 60 years, per the AP. The bus is the centerpiece of a new exhibition celebrating the legacy of the Grateful Dead, a band that rose from the city's famed hippie movement. "Forever Grateful/Golden Gate Park" opens Saturday and will also feature the Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia's BMW, which remains in mint condition and has never been displayed publicly.

The two iconic artifacts will anchor an exhibition that immerses visitors in the colors, sounds, and sights of the counterculture that flourished in San Francisco in the 1960s. Kesey rode the bus dubbed "Furthur" during the cross-country trip by the late author and his Merry Band of Pranksters to expand human consciousness through art, music, and mind-altering drugs. That road trip was later recounted in Tom Wolfe's 1968 bestseller, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. The exhibit, which runs through Oct. 25, will also help launch an effort to restore the now-dilapidated bus, which got its name after a typo on its destination sign. The bus was kept on the Kesey family farm in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, and was last seen in public at Woodstock in 1969.