Jeez do I love it up here. The first time I came to Oregon, in about 1969, I pulled in to a gas station and a guy walked up and handed me a joint (I had long hair).
I’ve been here about 48 hours and swam in 2 rivers, soaked in hot springs, met lots of wonderful people, and yesterday fell in love. With a barn.
I fall in love with buildings, and this little curved-roof barn just took my breath away. Hasn’t happened in years. I walk inside and go (out loud), oh yeah! I’ll post pix soon.
Book signing at Powell’s tonight. Maybe I’ll slip some barn photos into my slide shows this week.
Photo: No one told me the Clackamas River was emerald green!
Dear Lloyd,
I made a short documentary about a friend of mine who lives on a small 50 year old boat and is one of if not the happiest person in my life. The movie is short but I think honest and hopefully a little inspiring. The movie has been touring film festivals but just yesterday I was able to upload it online and make it available to the world for free.…
Kevin Fraser
… Ed March is this kid from the sticks, down in south west England. He is a bit of a nutter, with a great attitude. He travels on a Honda C90. An old reliable tiny engined “step through” motorbike/scooter moped ? He has had a few adventures to bike rallies, then up to the arctic circle. Then — he boxed it up and shipped it to Malaysia and rode it home. 14,000 miles across Asia, India and Europe. Its a truly epic journey.
I watched most of it compulsively on youtube. Then he did a kickstarter/crowdfunding appeal and managed to raise enough to get the videos edited up and released as a DVD.
To me he is a hero. Has great attitude and will go a long way.
Check him out:
https://www.youtube.com/user/c90adventures
Enjoy
Rich (Jones)
Below is one of Ed March’s adventures. If you click on the above link, there are a bunch more. This guy is out there!
Driving north along the California coast, heading north from Mendocino, Hwy. 1 crosses the mountains north of Ft. Bragg (a way more real town than Mendocino) to join up with Hwy. 101. After you climb to the ridge top, there’s maybe a 5-mile winding downhill until you get to the south fork of the Eel River. Looks like it would be great for experienced downhillers. Too steep for me, but for you guys who can slide and maneuver, it’s a long downhill ride. How about full moon, 3 AM when traffic is scarce? Full safety gear including bright headlight and flashing red tail lights…
Once you hit the Eel, it’s a few miles to Smithe Redwoods State Reservation, which has:
Tuesday I drove up to Petaluma to look at a fishing kayak.* The hills have changed from green to dried-out golden, almost white in the bright sun. Lots of growth due to late rains, grasses waving in the afternoon wind…Speaking of which, we’ve had a week of early morning low tides, but also winds. Took my kayak across a local bay a few days ago, the wind was coming up. I thought about turning back, but it started dying down.
No luck getting horsenecks, but I got a mess of cockles plus 2 nice rock crabs; good way to spend the morning…steamed cockles last night, but they wouldn’t open after 15 minutes steaming, tough little fuckers, and steaming them this long made them tough…gotta figure this out, these aren’t the compliant commercial clams you can buy…seaweed was thick on the beach, so loaded my truck up, it’s getting rinsed and added to compost pile…just ordered a rod and spinning reel for stripers…my ongoing food-from-sea endeavors sure are fun, plus with the kayak, I’m getting a workout…
I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but check out https://www.monkeyfacenews.com/, Kirk Lombard’s writings on fishing the Pacific Coast. Just found this video, go to 3:22 to see him catching a mess of herring to great music and with ayuda from a fellow fisherman…I’m goin’ fishin too…
*I’m pretty well settled on a 12′ Tarpon 120 by Wilderness Systems. It’s another world from my 20-year-old 12′ Scrambler by Ocean Kayak (which I’m gonna sell cheap). Having such a great boat will be an incentive to get out there often…also getting a sail (Wind Paddle Scout Sail) — minimal, will only go downwind…
The drive to Pt. Arena is about 3 hours. Usually takes me about 4. This time, leaving in the afternoon, instead of (as usual) early morning, it took me 8 hours to get to Louie’s. Did I have fun! I must have stopped, usually to shoot photos, 50 times…I’m thinking of changing the nature of this blog once we get THESHELTERBLOG up and running, maybe tie it in with Instagram, a photo+ caption a day. More like getting you to ride shotgun with me. For example:
Anywhere on this Pacific Coast, there are creek beds, rivers, canyons running perpendicular to the ocean. Water-carved arroyos. As you drive, you can look down and see if there is a trail down to the beach, and there often is. Just before sunset last night, I spotted the trail here. it was like going through a jungle. A pristine white (dirty white color — the best — sand beach, mountains of driftwood.
Here is the link to the project Dylan & Coastal Crew have been working on the last year or two…a new year round mountain bike park in Sechelt, overlooking Sechelt inlet, beautiful location, amazing ride!
Mike Basich was our featured builder in Tiny Homes. This is his home built of rock, local timber, steel and glass in the High Sierras of California.
Mike is the featured speaker at the Maker Faire in San Mateo, Calif. on May 18th. I’m doing a presentation just after Mike on Tiny Homes on the Move (in which we show Mike’s pickup truck/camper/snowmobile carrier).
Click here for an article last week on Mike and his homemade ski lift in Make Magazine.
Ryan Worcester is a local adventurer. There are 2 pages on his travels in Tiny Homes on the Move, using a motorcycle with a mountain bike mounted on the back so he could take the bike off and explore off-pavement. Here’s a more recent adventure of his, a 5-day bike trip around Maui. Look closely to see him mid-air in this photo.
“Day Two We took a quick cruise to Wainapanapa state park and I went for an early morning ocean swim out to a sea stack, which I could climb up the chossy volcanic rock to reach the top before jumping into the ocean below. A great way to start the day, and even better after we went for another swim in the freshwater caves close by.…”
Jeez do I love it up here. The first time I came to Oregon, in about 1969, I pulled in to a gas station and a guy walked up and handed me a joint (I had long hair).
