A journalist, Raoul Duke, and his attorney, Doctor Gonzo, are driving to Las Vegas from Los Angeles on a Saturday in 1971. They are assigned to cover an off-road vehicle race taking place there, the Mint 400, for a sporting magazine in New York. They have taken with them almost three hundred dollars’ worth of “extremely dangerous drugs” (4), including mescaline, LSD, cocaine, and ether. Some of this they sample on the way, leading Raoul to hallucinate that the sky “was full of what looked like huge bats” (3). Along the way they pick up a young hitchhiker. They explain to him that they are on their way to Las Vegas to find the American Dream. However, this, combined with Raoul talking about the Manson family and manta rays attacking the car, terrifies the hitchhiker, who seems to Raoul like he wants to escape.

Raoul explains how they prepared for their trip. They first collected three hundred dollars from a woman in the Beverley Hills office of the magazine they were working for. They then decided to stock up on drugs, rent a car, and procure a tape recorder and Acapulco shirts. Raoul outlines his