This will be my private meditation room most of the year:

And the outside of my 12,000 square foot residence:

It’s a little freakishly remote, and lonely, which is part of why I’m returning to this blog after such a long hiatus. I have a couple more stories from my travels and my father’s wedding to tell before they fade. After that I will continue to update with goings-on in Crestone and whatever else arises…

48 hours since arriving, I am beginning to think they are right. This is the most beautiful and sane city I have ever encountered (at first glance anyway. Admittedly, it’s high summer and any relatively well-off city is pretty joyful place). It’s like a bizzaro America where the fast food and Starbucks are few and far between whilst an infinite variety of local ethnic food, including tons of vegetarian options, litter the commercial district.

Right in the middle of East Vancouver, across the street from where I am staying, is beautiful Trout Lake surrounded by an equally beautiful park. This is place where people of all ages, races, and backgrounds come to enjoy. The runners run, the dog-owners hang at the north end, the ducks splash in the lake, the kids swim in the south end, the young people smoke weed on the secluded boardwalks and make out on the benches. The college kids play hackysack and throw discs. The west end of the park houses a giant athletic center with an ice skating rink, outdoor basketball courts, and more. And then there’s the grass… lots of grass! There’s even a farmer’s market in the lot on Saturdays. Together with all the shops, offices, and markets you could need within walking distance, this is a weirdly utopian urban neighborhood in my mind.

The house where I am staying has four levels including the finished attic and basement and a large backyard with a cherry tree and garden.

My favorite experience of all was lying around at the clothing optional hippie beach (where it was actually warm enough to swim in the Pacific! Yay!) and having random nude men with backpacks wander by shilling cold beer and pot under their breath like they were selling molly in the lot of a Phish show. Naked.

I feel blessed to have made it here. Fate played her ever inscrutable games with me when it came to Olympia. For days before arriving there, I was looking for a host unsuccessfully, only to end up at the last minute with a graduating Evergreen student, as per my last post. The moment I arrived I was pretty beat and told him I would like to take it easy, “No, we’re going to a party tonight, he said.” The debauchery that followed was as epicly entertaining as it was completely gross.

I won’t go into all the details here but there were two nights of partying followed by a sort of recovery day with swimming in a river, all while these kids were working furiously on their final projects. Their energy and resilience was amazing, and far superior to my own.

Most of you know by now that I got horribly sick the evening after I wrote my last post. A fever arose, white and red stuff covered the back of my throat, and I was laid out. I stayed two days with an awkward, inexperienced couchsurfing couple who were sweet but it wasn’t the situation for me. I ended up with an old family friend I had never met in Dupont, WA, a pretty serious military town. She gave me the guest room and free reign in her awesome large house, almost a century old.

There I bathed repeatedly, did crazy natural remedies, and gradually nursed myself back to health over 4 or 5 days. It’s a good thing I recovered when I did because she (a registered nurse) was starting to make noises about doctors and antibiotics. I really did not want to get into how my insurance has a giant deductable and that at this point I would tend not to take a suppressive therapy unless somebody’s life or limb was on the line.

The craziness and week-long detour somehow led up to a perfecly lovely visit in Vancouver that I am cherishing every moment of. I could not have made it if not for the lovely Spanish/Mexican couple who kindly picked me up from downtown Seattle and drove me to downtown Vancouver without a second thought. I even got to play with their 1-year-old in the back seat most of the way! I had been a bit nervous about doing the border crossing as a borderline vagrant because I had read that they give hitchhikers and broke people a hard time, even detaining folks for a short bit and telling their rides to go on without the rider. I came prepared with documents explaining my travels but that turned out to be unecessary. We vaguely mentioned meeting in Seattle and them giving me a ride and I think the custom’s lady got the picture but she was too overwhelmed trying to figure out the couple’s complicated story and paperwork to give me any lip.

So as the bank account ever-approaches rock bottom and I claw my way even deeper, trying to secure a loan for my VTI retreat, I find myself increasingly euphoric and pleased with life.

It is a strange and thrilling thing to be freed of the tyranny of having money to spend. Everything changes. Soon enough I plan to even pawn my laptop in order to fund my debts for the next couple months and to lighten my load the little bit extra that’s needed for me to be fully mobile with all my gear. At that point I will be free to hitch, dumpster, and stealth camp to my heart’s delight without horrible back aches and worrying about anything terribly important being stolen.

Things are looking up, and ever stranger.

Much love to you all.

-Spending those nights drinking with and learning from a bunch of former traveling kids. My driver, who I met via craigslist rideshare, picked up several hitchhikers on our roundabout journey from the bay area to Eugene, OR. My interest in vagabonding was piqued strongly here.

-Spending another night at a geodesic home from the 70s with a couple of middle-aged hippies, their chronically underclothed two-year-old boy, sheep, tenants who lived in a hobbit-house built into a hillside, two giant dogs, and one very loud frog in the garden.

-Hanging out at an old anarchist student co-op in Eugene at the end of their semester. A lot of drama and partying going on constantly. I slept surprisingly well and mostly unmolested in their attic. The variety and immediacy of so many beautiful, young hippie/co-op girls was a bit overwhelming… I mainly hid in the attic.

-Having a meditation friend, Goli, drive  from Davis to Berkeley to meet me after we hadn’t seen each other in a year. We walked the amazing botanical gardens at UC Berkeley and had dinner at Cafe Gratitude there.

-Receiving a text message from the very same friend a week later at 2am telling me she was on a train to Eugene. This, after receiving a voicemail from her that afternoon letting me know she couldn’t take me up on my offer to kidnap her into the woods for the long weekend.

-Staying with Goli at Erik’s parents’ house in the lovely addition they built with him in mind. The Bonnetts were incredibly hospitable and generous. They hosted us for dinner, provided a lot of great conversation, and went out of their way to lend us their expertise and some gear for our backpacking trip.

-Hiking the Mckenzie river trail, a gorgeous 27-mile jaunt accessible by city bus (!) up a geologically unique river. We spent two great nights out in the back-country on this trail. The second night we were overlooking the “Blue Pool” where the water of the lake erupts emerald green and turquoise from a lava rock-wall. It flows through the lava bed, underground, for over a mile upstream from where we camped. The next day as we hiked up, all we could see was dry river bed for quite a while, then stagnant pools, then finally the river slowly reforming above land.

-Spending a day at Clear Lake, the headwaters of the Mckenzie, where everything kept going right. Our plans to stealth camp at the established campground were foiled when we met an exuberant, all-american grandmother next to the site we had been chosen. She insisted on getting the host to let us stay there for free since it had been paid for already but vacated early. She wanted the free parking spot for her son-in-law’s truck anyway. After a little conversation she then offered us their canoe, a first for Goli (much to my delight/horror as a former paddling instructor she insisted on facing me from the bow and paddling backwards for over half our outing because facing the same way was “stupid”). When we returned, our new friend’s crotchety and hilarious husband (they communicated with/scolded each other via walkie-talkie from around the lake) cooked up, for us, two of the twenty-five fish he had caught that day on the lake. There is a picture of him first going fishing on this lake with his dad as a 6-month-old. Around that time their kids and grandkids arrived. We shared our organic pasta & veggies and ate smores with their whole family. The next day was nice and slow as we took a walk around the lake and eventually went out to the highway where we hitched a ride from the fifth car to go by back down to the ranger station bus stop.

-Seriously hitchhiking for the first time. With tales of vagabondry going through my head for the past week and a little bit of internet research to guide my way, I took to the highway onramp by the Gateway Mall in Springfield, OR, Eugene’s sister-city. Another guy was already there. We had some nice conversation, mainly about how I was way more likely to get picked up being young and clean cut versus his dirty, heavily goateed face. Turns out he was right. Shortly after I arrived he accepted a ride going only 30 miles up the highway after being out there for almost two hours. Twenty minutes later I got a ride right to the block I wanted from a woman driving her 2-year-old son to the Children’s Hospital in Portland. She had never picked up a hitchhiker before but thought I looked nice. However, when I got into the car I did have to reassure her that I was not a murderer.

-Staying two nights with a couple in Portland whose main recreation seems to be hosting couchsurfers. Their tiny one-bedroom place was filled to the brim with extra beds and mattresses so that the five of us guests could stay there comfortably. The walls of the living room were covered with quotes, poetry, and art left by couchsurfers. While cramped and busy, the space was surprisingly warm and comfortable. I slept great and met some really nice people. I might have stayed longer but I wanted to make it to the Really Really Free Market in Olympia.

-Being contacted by a host in Olympia the night before I left Portland. I tried to hitchhike again but there were no buses going to the north end of the metro area on the weekend. I went out to a city onramp where I got put in my place by a couple of bums camped out there. They sent me to the greyhound station where I could catch a bus for “$9”. I ended up paying $20 for the amtrak but it was still probably better than trying to hitch the I-5 in the middle of Portland. Eventually I made it to Olympia where I have been staying with a guy named Caleb in his off-grid cabin in the woods outside the city.

-Hanging out with some of the Evergreen crowd. I have had a very interesting few days including lots of time on campus, a couple parties, a bonfire, swimming in a river, and lots of hanging out at a gorgeous, unmarked coffee shop called Sizizis. The Really Really Free market I was so psyched to attend was postponed because the organizers forgot to pull the permit for the park that day.

-This moment of writing while watching seals and waterbirds hunt for their breakfast less than a hundred feet away. I sit on the porch of a beach-house rented by one of Caleb’s friends, where we spent the night. Sometimes the seals come right up the beach under my feet and deer are also wandering about while the tide is low…

Next is hitchhiking across the border to visit sangha friends in Vancouver for a few days and then formally vagabonding my way back down to the bay area!

There I will be staying at wild-sounding co-op and making preparations to go backpacking for five days. I have a whole series of articles on gift economy and relocalization itching to go up. Look for the first one middle of next week before I take off to the woods.

Missing you all!

Thanks for checking in on my new blog.

Here I will be documenting my journies and postings some articles that have been spinning around in my head for the past couple years. There may some other random tidbits like poetry or stories as well. Look for updates on Facebook or the RSS feed and please do comment!

I am exciting about using this format both to keep in commnication with all of you who I don’t talk to regularly and to continue to practice the inspiration and creativiy that too often subside, unfulfilled, in my life.

The format and styling of this site are going to be experiencing a creative process for some time – but don’t be scared if you come back and things look different. The content will all be here!