Four years after the legendary 1964 bus trip immortalized in Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Ken Kesey began serving time in San Mateo County Jail for pot possession. Transferred to an experimental low-security "honor camp" in the redwood forest, he spent six months clearing brush and immersing himself in the life of the jail community, attempting to "bring light and color" to it. "This is crazier here than the nuthouse ever was," Kesey noted, and proceeded to record the scene in numerous notebooks, illustrated with intense and brilliantly colored artwork.