"Instead of seeing the rug being pulled out from under us, we can learn to dance on a shifting carpet" -Thomas F. Crum

"Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse
while all the others were making ships." -Charles Simic

It's a mean country,
but it's your's and mine
I know it's rugged, but I'm set to see it shine
-East Texas Red


It's a long and rugged road
and we don't know where we're heading
but we know it's gonna get us where we're going

When we find what we're looking for
we'll drop these bags and search no more
It's gonna feel like heaven when we're home.
-The Wailing Jenny's

Davis, CA
Planned residential "suburb" community, that is planned according to the sun. People park on the outsides, and walk around. There is an edible landscape, and homes are oriented for passive solar gain, and active instalations on the roof.

Headed north from Berkeley, visited the Shasta Dam, got a very interesting tour and heard how they have a proposal in the Senate to increase the height of the dam 18 feet, because demand continues to grow on this precious resource. 75% of California's water falls in the northern part of the state. It then gets pumped down to southern California where 75% of the people live. A strange concept that seems unlikely to continue forever.





Visited the Redwood National Park along the coast. Beautiful trees that towered above me. It is very difficult to view the redwoods in a drizzle, because you always want to be looking up and up at them, but then you get raindrops in your eye. It cleared up a bit, and the sun even came out for the end of my day. An epic bike ride took me on an abandoned road through a huge grove, then over the ridge to the costal trail, biking through flooded trails, then around an elk herd, and back up over the ridge. A peaceful off season experience only running into a few other visitors. I couldn't camp in the redwoods because they were so huge and overbearing that I felt small and vulnerable without anyone with me. So I headed north and camped in Smith Wilderness area, the trees are normal sized there.


Into Oregon!
Visited a couple of farms in Grants Pass area, organic and one supplied food to a restaurant on site (Summer Jo's). The traveled to Cottage Grove, OR and Aprovecho, a research and education center. www.aprovecho.net The are working on gardening, forestry, but also appropriate technology, specifically wood burning stoves. These ideas are then shared at stove conferences and throughout the developing world where wood fuel is becoming an important topic. The vision to expand knowledge and promote sustainable living (heading towards regenerative living) is an extremely important and momentum building approach.

North of San Fran.

County Line Farm-organic produce that sells to restaurants in San Fran and at farmers markets. It was great to reconnect with Jeremey and Andrew, and I just happened to time things perfectly with dinner parties :)




Occidental Arts and Ecology Center

A residential community that hosts workshops, interns and community members. Wednesdays are volunteer garden work days, so I got my hands dirty and helped prepare a bed for winter crops. They embody permaculture ideas, so each bed has many different varieties and crops. There are a number of experiemental "solar" houses that were on the property which house participants. It was a beautiful community on beautiful land. The ideas and motivations to live on the land in harmony with natural cycles, and to actually produce a healthier place to live, were inspiring and exciting.

Solar Homes Tour Oct 2nd, I volunteered at the Oakland Solar Homes Tour, stuffing envelopes, then sitting outside a woman's house and telling the passer-bys about her solar panels mounted to her roof. Rebates are constantly changing to make solar instalations more affordable, and if you are grid tied, there is no need for batter storage. Your meter simply moves backwards.

College of Environmental Design- U. Cal. Berkeley
A very prestigious Green architecture program, landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning programs. I talked with many students, saw some presentations, and spoke with professors within the landscape architecture department. Lots of resources in the area, and a very progressive hub no doubt. One trick. ..getting in. Brooke (williams '03) took some classes, then reapplied and was able to get into the program she wanted.



October 21-Green Materials Showcase in San Francisco. Hosted by Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility. A day of presentations, representatives talking about products, and learning about the possibilities in the Bay Area.

Snow Areials in San Francisco. Jonny Mosley hosted the event, they trucked in shaved ice from the fishing warfs, and created a ski jump in the middle of the street. A strange sight to see on the hot sunny day.

Berkeley, CA
An evening with Peter Calthorpe hosted by Livable Berkeley. Calthorpe, a renowned architect/urban planner lives in Berkeley and was discussing some of his projects in Chicago, Salt Lake City, and L.A. He is both a thinker and a practitioner. Starting his career in architecture he began to see that house by house influence was "putting sails on the freight ship" and therefore not accomplishing as much as could be possible by turning that freight ship into a schooner! Regional planning needs to be addressed in order to encompass the network of interactions that occur within urban frameworks.

The four main principles:
1.Diversity and Balance
2.Human and pedestrian scale
3.Conservation and Restoration-the "great" american grid may not be the answer because it disregards the natural aspects of place such as wetlands, streams, etc.
4.Connections and interdependance-no healthy community is in isolation

"Cities survive bad architecture if they have good urbanism"

There was discussion about what can be done in Berkeley to create more neighborhoods (blockades try to reduce traffic by being a hassle, but I've heard people end up driving more because they go in circles!) Redevelopment is happening in old buildings, on old industrial frieght yards, and within the existing structure of the city. A good point was made that cities need to be able to keep their diversity and some "dirty" city streets to the older generation are in fact the lure for the younger generations.

Berkeley is a progressive and liberal city filled with excited students, transients, and the grown up "hippies" with money. A very interesting conglomeration of people.

Yosemite National Park

A healthier adult playground than Las Vegas or even Disney World. The "village center" is full of winding roads, paths, bikers, campsites, and a hotel, but it is fostering a place where people can get outside! Yes some of the beginning hikes are paved 20 foot wide paths that guide you to a lake or waterfall, but if you get a little bit beyond those boundaries you can be completely alone. The excitement and enjoyment for the outdoors was contagious and great to see. Maybe by providing a very comfortable means of experiencing the outdoors more people will.

They have free hybrid shuttles to promote parking your car and getting around the village by other means. Solar paneled water meters was interesting to see in the shaded woods. . .at least they're trying.





watch out for the bears. . .not a good place to be when I had a hole in the side of my car. I parked in the largest parking lot with the most people, and was just fine.

Owen's Valley-East side of the Sierra's. 300 miles from L.A. and they had signs posted "no camping, property of the city of L.A." along this "river" that was being pumped to feed the consumption of the sprawling suburbs of L.A. The underground water supplies are not being refilled with the natural runoff and there are continual battles over water levels. The stubborn or "strong willed" in that area are fighting to maintain the ecosystem and vitality of Owen's Valley that is slowly being drained by the far away beast of yet another sprawling metropolis.

Right is power going to the fenced in pumping station that feeds the river in order to get the blood to L.A.

Mojave, CA-Wind Turbine Farm! EnXco and FPL Energy. The wind was strong and the blades were steadily turning. A powerful example of what can harness our renewable resources. For anyone who has never seen/heard/or gotten anywhere near a wind turbine I say you MUST see them before you start battling them. These structures aren't for every place, but they are not eye sores when you've seen coal power plants spewing soot high into the air, or oil refineries pumping out their stuff.

Which do you prefer?

Petrified Forest National Monument, Arizona- Amazing to think that 250 million years ago what is the desert was a vast and dense forest. These petrified trees are now stone and lie in pieces in the sand, large and dramatic remnants of what has been. what will be?


Hoover Dam-A huge engineering feat, and now a terrorist target. Check points greet you before you see it, then the deteriant of parking makes you keep moving over and beyond it. Is this development healthier than the large coal power plants? We need to harness the water if people are going to be occupying the West, so are these large scale dams really the best option?
On another note with water, this is Death Valley, I went SWIMMING in Death Valley, well more like splashing, but you get the point. There is currently standing water there. I strange sight to see a natural lake where their used to be one millions of years ago.

DEATH VALLEY- CA A hot, hot place. Although it only reached 98 when I was there. The barren land was only spotted with green at resorts like this one where the palm trees huged their irrigated land closely and the ones who strayed to far died.

I hiked the sand dunes, splashed in the standing water on the salt flats, attempted to bake cookies on my dash board when I went off hiking and tried to avoid the Germans in their rented RVs.