Travel Notes From Last Week

I’m frustrated by having so much material to post, but so little time to do so. So, rather than let it all slide, here are snippets from my trip last week to Mendocino and Humboldt counties:

On the road to Petaluma, Nicasio Lake is looking dry, and it’s only June…the Russian River valley looks dry, except for the verdant vineyards, sucking all that river water up, there’s widespread overplanting of grapes in California…A hand painted sign by the river said “Salmon can’t drink wine.”…On my way back from Arcata, I came down Hwy. 101, a lot easier driving than heading back down the coast…went swimming in the Eel River again…a lot of logging trucks on the road…a spiffy little Porsche passed me, it had a GoPro camera mounted on its roof…all these people cluttering YouTube with GoPro videos of whatever…then jumped into the Russian River (above) — there are nice pools south of Hopland at Indian Rock — the water is a nice temp this time of year, no algae buildup yet…then a pint of dark Monster Ale and fish tacos at the Ruth McGowan Brewery in Cloverdale…the next day I went out to Ocean Beach in SF, it was foggy, the surfers looked like ghosts in the mist…2 lifeguards in their trucks, reminded me of my lifeguarding years at Lake Tahoe, Santa Cruz, and Stinson Beach — what a great job!…fog on the Waldo grade, and a thin finger of white fog reaching into Mill Valley…saw some young people crossing street in MV, looking smug…young, rich, entitled:

“Dinner for 2 at the French Laundry, $700 — yeah, baby!”

“Blinded by my Beemer’s high-intensity headlights — tough shit!” Sorry, they just piss me off…our local lagoon has 1000 faces, and Friday it was sparkling in the afternoon sunlight…I’m goin’ home, bome, bome, bome-bome-bome,
Home, bome, bome, bome, back home…

Music del Semana: On most of the trip I played The 2 Tone Collection, a kind of remarkable blending of ska and punk that went on in the UK in the ’80s and somehow was never picked up on in the USA.

0602. Let's Do Rock Steady by The Bodysnatchers on Grooveshark

About Lloyd Kahn

Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include Shelter, Shelter II (1978), Home Work (2004), Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008), Tiny Homes (2012), and Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:

3 Responses to Travel Notes From Last Week

  1. Lloyd,
    The smug,young, rich and entitled you mentioned, are most likely up to there arm pits in debt. Yeah they piss me off, too.
    Ken

  2. Baby get your groove back, another kind of life,
    One you think that you deserve.
    Nothing you should lack, now reverting back the time,
    Never mind you lost your nerve.

    Yeah you had a go at sleeping in the van
    But you couldn't let it go too far.
    Now you got a pension plan
    And your name's on the insurance
    And you can drive another woman's car.

    A kind of glamour
    You can lend yourself
    Like dark sunglasses
    And you'll remember
    How good it tasted
    Inside the ruling classes
    Wasted, behind your dark sunglasses

    Read more: Chrissie Hynde – Dark Sunglasses Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Leave a Reply