Shelter and The Whole Earth Catalog in Abandoned Baja Hacienda

Hello there, Mr. Lloyd Kahn,

I hope that you and your loved ones are doing okay during these turbulent times!

I am a big fan of your books and have been poring over them for years for inspiration, joy, hope, and encouragement. I feel the pull to go on and on here and tell you about myself but I don’t want to take up your precious time.…

We fell in love with Baja on our travels as many do, and I know you can relate. We especially loved the oasis town of Mulege. We made good friends while we were there and had to go back. This past January we drove back there in our truck without the travel trailer this time. We rented a house from a friend that was in a hilltop neighborhood (Loma Azul) with the desert for its backyard with hikes through that magic desert to quiet beaches. We put our 10- and 7-year-olds in the local school; (they had been in Spanish immersion in the past but this was a new level). We had planned to be there for three months but sadly as we saw the news begin to break about the coronavirus, we decided to head back home to NC to get a garden started and help our families prepare to get hunkered down, and I am glad we did.

While we were in Mulege on a walk through the desert, we stumbled on an abandoned dwelling with a view of the ocean. It had a few little buildings and some outdoor patio spaces. Such a beautiful and dreamy spot.

It clearly had been abandoned years ago and was in a state of decomposition. The buildings were filled with stuff! It seems someone had just up and moved away and then a big storm hit. Dishes, clothes, books, on and on!

This was a dream for me, I am a huge lover of old treasures and thrifting. I didn’t want to go through it without permission, so with some asking around we were able to locate the neighbors of the place who own that little dive shop in town. I asked them about the place and they said that a couple had lived there years ago and the wife had died. The husband moved up to Northern Mexico to be with his family and he did not want anything that was left there.

I was amazed to find a book there that you may recognize! I had been looking in thrift stores and yard sales for years for a copy of The Whole Earth Catalog and here amongst this seemingly random rubble I found a copy of The Last Whole Earth Catalog AND a copy of Shelter! 

I was recently thumbing through Home Work again and reread the pages about Baja — I hadn’t looked at that part of the book since we had traveled there. Then I had this crazy idea: What if these books traveled and found a home in Mulege by way of Lloyd Kahn? It is just that those books didn’t really fit in with the rest of the stuff we found in the “abandoned hacienda” (as we started to call it).

I thought I would send this story along to you in case you found it interesting. I also wanted the opportunity to thank you for your work and what you put out in the world.

–Bren Boseman Seed