The spiffy sailboat was anchored in Coupeville. The big boat is one of 1000s of boats in drydock in Anacortes, which is a boat wonderland. This morning I’m heading over to SunRay Kelley’s place near Cedro Woolley to photograph the latest in his prolific building career, then tomorrow to Puyallup for the Mother Earth News Fair. James Brown now playing in the bakery, Poppa’s Got a Brand New Bag. He ain’t no drag…
These guys were just landing a fish (in a lake near the spectacular Deception Pass Bridge). Check out the lines of the boat
Above: tidy, tight, trim building in Coupeville, Washington. I love the colors.
Get into Seattle around 11AM yesterday, go to pick up my Budget economy rental car and get upgraded to a blue Mustang since they are out of economy cars. Vawoom! I head to Mukliteo to catch the ferry to Whidbey Island, since I want to go to Anacortes to check out fishing boats. (I’m looking for an aluminum boat in the 15-17′ range that can handle getting out through waves.)
Pretty soon I’m driving down the road on Whidbey with all 9 of the radio stations preset to R&R and jazz. Brand new road — nothing like it. Exploring the unexplored, hunting with cameras. The Stones , Thelonius Monk, a — get this — reggae song in Spanish, within fiddles, on the French (Canadian) station, Da me ague, da me pan, da me fuero, da me amor, terrific song, but can’t find it anywhere…
I ask a guy on the ferry about a place to get lunch and he recommends Toby’s Tavern in Coupeville, a gem of a tiny town on the water. A 70-year-old good-vibes, good-beer, good-food bar looking out on the bay. I have a few (ahem) glasses of inky Black Butte porter (on tap) and local mussels with garlic bread. Visit the local bookstore, get a maple nut (homemade-style) waffle ice cream cone, crank the Mustang back up, crank the radio back up, and make my way to Anacortes. The elephant (of concrete) was just in a field all alone. Kinda perfect. Now it’s Thursday morning, and I’ve sussed out the La Crema Cakes bakery in Anacortes, with an excellent apple turnover and a latte and wi-fi. Right now, Johnny Otis’ band on radio doing Willy and the Hand Jive…
I know a cat named Way Out Willie
He’s got a cool little chick named Rockin’ Millie
He can walk and stroll and Susie Q
And do that crazy hand jive too…
“For the past 7 years Smallworks has constructed small, beautiful, affordable and sustainable lane houses in Vancouver, Canada. Working with licensed architects in practice for over 20 years, and exceeding the green building practices for Vancouver’s Green Home Program, we offer a variety of pre-approved lane house designs as well as custom built lane houses and small homes”
Rick Gordon has produced an in-house state-of-the-art, fixed-layout EPUB version of Tiny Homes, which accurately replicates the design and content of the print version. It is extensively hyperlinked, with zoomable images and text. I have not seen any ebook this complex (1300 photos) in all of the Apple world. We are thrilled with it.
It can be read on an iPad or iPhone that has iOS 5 (or higher) installed and a current version of the iBooks app (available for free from the App Store, if not already installed). Note: This is not a PDF nor an app.
Recipient of the 2012 Nautilus Silver Award in the category of Green Living.
Dan Wright, Technical Manager for CircularFLO (the software Rick used) in an email to Rick titled “Your masterpiece…,” wrote: “(This) is the most impressive Fixed Layout EPUB I have ever seen.”
We’d appreciate you spreading the word about this if you can. Blog it or Tweet it or Facebook it. It’s really good. I guar-an-tee it.
Off the Clock I ran — well, ambled over — the Dipsea Trail last week with my running buddies. I started real early. It was the first time in 20 years I’ve run the (7+) mile course without a certain amount of stress and a definite amount of pain. The upside, of course, is the beauty of the trail and the lore and romance of the race. We all had fine dinners at the Parkside in Stinson Beach (they have a knockout inky black porter on tap), gemütlicheit of all these healthy people.
I was forced to quit by knees that would no longer take the hard downhills (where I had to make up for being a slow uphill runner). Being forced into racing retirement has huge benefits. Running, if I do now, for the joy of it. Off the clock. No hurry, no need to train, hey, there’s a lot of other stuff to do!
Look Where You Want To Go This is what a pro mountain biker told me. Meaning when you’re say, going fast downhill in rough terrain, look at where you want your front tire to go, don’t look at the immediate foreground. Look ahead and your body will make the adjustments and get you there. Same principle in life. Focus on where you want to go and by golly, you’ll usually get there. Athletes know this.
Our Next TWO Books I’m starting on Water and Wheels: Tiny Homes On the Move as soon as I get back from this (my last) PR road trip. I’m going to start the book with mobile units by one guy — tent, dogsled, umiak, sailboat, birchbark canoes, road van — all created from scratch by Mark Hansen, a prolific and remarkable builder living on the shores of Lake Superior.
The second book, due to a flash yesterday, will maybe be on Small Homes, say under 1000 sq.ft. We’re starting to collect info, so if you know of unique home in this category, please leave a comment with yr. email address and we’ll be in touch. It’s either a book like this, or a second tiny homes book. Just have to see what shakes out.
My Last Tiny Homes Roadshow Trip I’m leaving tomorrow morning for Seattle, renting a car, hoping to both go to a somewhat remote hot springs and then to SunRay Kelley’s Sedro Woolley compound to photograph his latest works, if time, out to Anacortes, to check out aluminum fishing boats (in the 15′ range), then drive to Puyallup to do a slide show at the Mother Earth News Fair at 4 PM on Saturday June 2d, then Sunday to NYC for the annual Book Expo America and a slide show at the v. cool Spoonbill and Sugartown bookstore in Brooklyn, Wed. June 6 at 7 PM. I’m so excited to be going to NYC; it’s been a 40-year love affair. When the cab hits 2nd, 3rd avenues my pulse starts racing. Absolutely station central. I’ll be blogging up a storm from there.
“The Oakland Tiny House is a 120 square foot dwelling on a trailer chassis in Oakland CA. The house will feature a full kitchen, composting toilet, outdoor shower, sleeping loft custom built in furniture and a fireplace. The siding is reclaimed redwood fensing and flooring is maple re-purposed from an old roller skating rink in Petaluma. total construction costs so far: $5000. Currently under construction, but almost finished!”
https://shltr.net/tinyoakland
On the coast last week, I stopped at the Chart House in Montara to have a look. It appears closed. I’d never seen the beach just below it.
Wonderful sculpture,Check out legs of old tires, look like muscles. A caveat, though, about this and the multitude of fire-snorting gizmos at the Maker Faire. They’re burning up a lot of non-renewable propane. It’s like the time for lighting houses with lavish Christmas lights is way over. Stop pissing it away.