Darkness fell precipitously Tuesday as I continued to climb toward Julian, Calif., on 78 East, which I had followed as suggested by an aging hippie in Encinitas, one of many in California who wear clothing marketed to people 20 years younger. The phrase "You’re only as old as you feel" is not completely true. You have to also be as old as you dress, speak and act.

78 East was not the idyllic route that he had promoted. Starting as a manic highway frenzying toward Escondido, it soon became an abominable hill, ascending to 4,500 feet by its crest.

Fearing I would have to pitch my tent in a field, I beseeched an old farmer for information on any campgrounds before Julian, which was still 15 miles away. "Wide spot in the road," he replied, waving his timeworn hand in dismissal as he walked away.

By the time I reached a small supermarket eight miles later, I was sure he was right. The cashier verified, suggesting I camp out in a field just up the hill.

I resolved to sit pitifully against the market’s brick wall and eat a sandwich and potato salad before trudging to find a suitable plot. Then a man with a makeshift white truck offered to drive me to a campground. I accepted.

Rick was his name, and he fell into the aforesaid aging hippie demographic, which comprises a whole lot of Californians, as far as I can tell. The group is varied, though, like California's landscape; they are beach bums, stereotypically, but Rick was an inland hippie.

He had driven seven miles down the hill to buy chocolate cake mix. "They don’t sell this stuff in Julian," he said. I can’t say I didn’t find it a little odd, but quickly I attributed it to his needing any human interaction, also a scarce resource in Julian.

In California, medical marijuana dispensaries sell pot and pot-infused goods to prescription holders, of whom, not surprisingly, there are a lot. The day after medical marijuana became legal, a glaucoma epidemic among aging hippies broke out.

Rick was not craving cake or conversation. He makes about $1,000 a week making pot baked goods – cookies, cakes, brownies – and selling them to dispensaries. He buys the pot he uses to make them illegally from Mexico. (He also crosses the border to receive dental work.) What that means is he has the potential to make about $52,000 a year, according to him, by enabling medical marijuana dispensaries to legally sell goods made with illegally purchased marijuana.

I laughed about the irony until he dropped me at a county park, where I was again alone, isolated as the only camper on the grounds.

"My address is 4135, if you wanna come by in the morning for coffee," Rick had said. As I passed the place the next morning, I broke briefly then proceeded, afraid of what kind of coffee he might be serving.