Carolyn Adams, aka Mountain Girl was Jerry Garcia's wife, good friend and more of Ken Kesey, and definetely one of the merry pranksters who was "on the bus." She was born in Poughkeepsie, NY. At the age of 17 she hitchhiked to California with her brother and soon met up with a bunch of psychedelic adventurers called the merry pranksters, who drove around in a wild bus called "Further" and held experimental concerts where LSD was given to the audience. This was documented in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test.
Adams eventually hooked up with Jerry Garcia and had two daughters with him. She also had a daughter with Ken Kesey. Garcia and Mountain Girl were married, but the union suffered from the pressure of being part of the Grateful Dead family, and the two were often separated.
In 1993 Adams and Garcia, both ready to go their own ways, signed an agreement that he would pay her a certain amount monthly from his estate. It was very casual, just a short note that the two had written themselves, wanting to avoid courts and lawyers. Upon Garcia's death in 1995, Garcia's new wife stopped the payments. In a lengthy court case, Adams won, and the judge ordered Garcia's estate to continue honoring the contract.
Carolyn Adams Garcia now lives on a small farm in Oregon where she grows native plants. She is a spokesperson for a natural vitamin and mineral supplement and she is active in several environmental education foundations. She plays catcher for the Pranktown Busriders, a baseball team composed mainly of merry pranksters and friends. From what I hear, she still has that zest for life and the amazing laugh that has always made her so special.
Mountain Girl also wrote a book about marijuana cultivation called The Primo Plant which helped me when I was doing that sort of thing. It was the only book I found that talked about how to sex pot plants so that you only grew females.