This clip is from a newspaper article of the day that recounts the Marlboro experience:
Against the backdrop of
wind-eroded red rocks in the desert outskirts of Moab, Utah, a bus the size of
a jet airliner pulls to a stop in a cloud of dust. Eighteen members of
the Marlboro Adventure Team and an entourage of foreign journalists step off
the bus. The journalists are here to cover the company’s month-long,
all-expenses-paid outdoors vacation in which four teams of handpicked
participants will raft the Colorado River rapids, power their way up sand dunes
by Jeep and race across the desert on motorcycles and ATVs in the name of
high-powered adrenaline adventure — footage from which will be broadcast
overseas in Marlboro ad campaigns and as promotion for the next year’s event.
In response to its
rigorous international promotion campaign aimed at young adults, Philip Morris
claims to receive nearly one million adventure team applications worldwide for
its annual desert event. After conducting telephone interviews and a
boot-camp selection process meant to measure charisma and athletic ability, the
cigarette maker whittles its final choices down to 100 men and women aged 18 to
25 — most of them nonsmokers — who come from countries with the highest smoking
rates in the world. (Washington)
By the 1970s, Marlboro
was the leading cigarette brand in the world. As a side note, four of the
seven actors or characters who portrayed the iconic Marlboro Man have died from
smoking-related diseases; the latest was Eric Lawson – January 2014.
Mount Shasta towered
above the town with the same name. It’s a stratovolcano, meaning its
shape has been built up over time by eruptions of slow-moving lava flows down
its steep-sided slopes, the last eruption being about a hundred years ago.
With my pack deposited
in the room and a bit of daylight still lingering in the sky, I ventured forth
into the town to see what I could discover. Foremost on my short list of
to-do items was to find a grocery store and a Laundromat. I was
successful with both items and returned to my room with snacks for later in the
evening and to make a quick change into rain gear so I could do laundry at the
coin-operated Laundromat just down the street. On my way back from the
Laundromat with clothes that were still damp (I didn’t want to spend the money
for the dryer), I met the German couple from Berlin – Biers and Ranch, and the
Japanese hiker, Yashinka, who were also staying at the Travel Inn.
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