Got back at 3 AM Thursday morning, having left Elko 15 hours earlier. Not straight-thru driving, by any means (I dawdle), but a long day nevertheless. A great trip, rich in adventure and new territory. Once again, I have the problem of too much “content.” I could do a small book on each trip, but each time I  return home, I get immersed in the details of running a publishing house, and having to work on a more standard sized book.

For example, I could do some really nice small books on travels to SE Asia, to Scotland, and this latest cruise through California’s two sister states.

My blog is bit of a hodgepodge these days, what with doing Instagram (because of its immediacy and ease), and other time constraints. If you haven’t figured it out, all the posts with the captions written up as headlines are automatic posts from Instagram to the blog. Not elegant, but it’s the best I can do right now.

You can view my Instagram posts at www.instagram.com/lloyd.kahn. This way you can see the videos, which don’t get transferred to the blog.

I’ll put up some photos (I shot about 450, between the iPhone (6S Plus) and Olympus OM-D) from the trip on the next post.

Your guess is as good as mine; this was on the outskirts of Colusa, a wierded-up VW bus.

I’m in Ashland this morning. After I left Colusa yesterday, I drove north about 3 hours, and went to Stewart Mineral Springs, just northwest of the town of Weed, and lucked into getting the last opening of the day. You soak in the heavily mineralized water, then get in fabulous large wood-fired sauna, then in the cold creek. Mineralized, flushed of toxins,  rejuvenated, I wanted a beer, walked into the one bar in Weed, Papa’s Bar (Well, YES!) and voilá, Joe Cocker on the juke box (with good sound system), doing You Can Leave Your Hat On. One good song after another, a lot of Stones. My kinda bar. In giving me change, the bartender included a Native American $1 coin AND stood it on edge on the bar.

Then for dinner to Asian-American Bar-B-Q, recommended by worker at Stewarts Mineral Springs. Bingo! The chef, born in Chicago, grew up in Thailand, barbecuing over wood coals, I got try-tip and rice ($12), with coconut juice,  it was perfect, smoky, juicy, homemade hot sauce (no mass-produced Sriracha), sat at table out on road watching one 18-wheeler after another go by. America!

Tammy Wynette, Stand By Your Man, came on the radio as I headed out for dinner; what a beautiful voice: 

 And then there’s Lyle Lovett doing it: 

Drove to Ashland, out to dead end road east of town and slept in the back of truck (my 13-year-old Tacoma 4×4, stick shift, 4 cylinder, 130K mileage, my baby…).

Up this morning, latte and cinnamon roll at Pony Espresso Coffee House in the rather precious town of Ashland. Going to have lunch with bodybuilding legend Bill Pearl and his wife, Judy, then head for Umpqua Hot Springs, then Lew and Krystal’s on outer edge of total eclipse zone.

A lotta adventures in just 30 hours away from home!

It’s happening on August 21st. I’m heading up to Oregon, with stop-offs at Stewart Mineral Springs near Lake Shasta (also, looking forward to seeing Shasta full for the 1st time in years), then to see legendary bodybuilder and good friend Bill Pearl and his wife Judy in Medford/Ashland area, then to Umpqua hot springs, then somewhere in totality zone for the big event.

Here’s link to where it will be visible in the US:

https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/total-eclipse-of-sun-august-21-2017

I witnessed a total eclipse in Baja in July, 1991, and it was (sorry for the hackneyed phrase, but…) awesome. Never to be forgotten.

My friend Chilón alerted me to it a year before, and I reserved a hotel room in San José del Cabo ($25 pr night). The morning of the eclipse I got up at 6AM, caught the 1st bus into Cabo San Lucas, rented a Honda motorcycle, and drove up the Pacific side towards Todos Santos, took a dirt road out to Playa Margarita, which turned out to be a spectacular miles-long sandy beach. As it was early, I went bodysurfing; there was abundant fool’s gold on the sand and as I swam (no goggles, but water was clear), flecks of gold swirled around me. What a planet!

It turned out there were 6 other people on the beach:

From left: two hair dressers from Denver, Craig and Frank; and 4 young Mexicans from Monterrey: Enrique (in foreground), Marta, Arturo and Juan. Craig and Frank had weed, the kids had a bottle of tequila, and it coalesced into a party.

The boys had eclipse glasses so we took turns watching the moon gradually blot out the sun. The sky turned blue-dark and everything was bathed in a light I’d never seen before. Incrediblé!

We finished the bottle, and then, after 2-3 hours together, our eclipse family took off in different directions, never to see each other again. I swam some more, then returned the motorcycle, went back to San José and had dinner at Le Baguette, a lovely French restaurant in this desert town. I’d call that a perfect day.

I don’t spend nearly as much time on this blog as I used to, because:

-I need to devote time to books

-I’m doing Instagram, which I like a lot, and each Instagram post gets put on the blog (and Twitter) automatically. The trouble is they look a bit weird, with hash tags, and too-large type. For which I apologize.

-I wish I had the time to do blog posts like I did a few years ago, but I need to focus on projects that bring in income. I told Stewart Brand a few months ago that I’d done over 5,000 posts, with no corresponding income and he said, what took you so long to figure that out?

Guess what just came on the radio (playing at this moment)? “I’m so tired, Lord, of bein broke all the time,” by Canned Heat. 

  Cosmic timing, eh?

My “Tour” I’m writing this from Courtenay, a (real) town I like a lot on Vancouver Island. I’m in the early stages of a tour of bookstore appearances with my new book. I just did the Community Hall on Hornby Island; the place was packed — young and old kindred spirits. Before I left, I did Mollusk Surf Shop in San Francisco and started by showing a few old scratchy B&W photos from surfing in Santa Cruz in the’50s, before wet suits and polyurethane foam, it was so much fun! Beer, cider, great music. Standing room only, some people couldn’t get in. A couple of angels made it possible.

Dates:

-Thursday (tomorrow): Russell Books, 734 Fort St, Victoria, 7 PM

-Tuesday, May 23, 7PM, Vancouver Public Library, Main Branch, 350 West Georgia St, Vancouver

-Thursday, May 25, 7:30 PM, McNally Robinson Books, 1120 Grant Ave, Winnipeg

-Saturday, May 27, Toronto: 11 AM, the Public Library at Parkdale; 2 PM, The Public Library, Danforth/Coxwell

-Thursday,June 1, Spoonbill and Sugartown in Brooklyn, 7PM

I’ve booked 6 flights for this sojourn. Sheesh! Booked into AirBnB places in Vancouver and Toronto to avoid high hotel bills.

New book: I’m working on a book on the ’60s. Someone told me a few weeks ago that it’s been 50 years since the “Summer of Love,” and there are a bunch of exhibits, articles, a lot of attention on the era, and most all that I read or see about it doesn’t correlate with what I saw happen. So I’m writing about  it from my own perspective, with my own photos. I grew up in San Francisco, went to high school in the Haight Ashbury district, and was 10 years older than the group (baby boomers) that caused it all to happen. I dropped out of the insurance business in 1965, partly because I felt I had more in common with young people than I did with my own generation. I’m not sure if it will come together as a book, but I’m following my modus operandi of: If you don’t know what to do — start. We’ll see.

Other books “The Half Acre Homestead,” a scrapbook on barns, a book on Baja, possibly a wild book on building by a French friend of mine…

Print-on-demand or short run books  A lot of things that don’t require a major book. The first one will be a 48-page book: Driftwood Shacks: Anonymous Architecture of the California Coast. In past years I  put together a bunch of handmade, hand-lettered sort of scrapbooks on trips: roaming through the southwest deserts, LA, NYC (both visually rich), Southeast Asia, the Greek island Lesbos (on a motor scooter)…I’ll see if it makes sense to do limited editions.

I feel like’ I’m just getting rolling.

I love it here in Canada. So many wonderful people + a bunch of true and lifelong friends. I told Michael the other day it feels like a “separated at birth” situation, it’s all so familiar and friendly and tuned into my sensibilities.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post “#shelterpublications world headquarters. #publishi…“:

Might interest one of your adventuring readers:

https://www.charitytoday.co.uk/national-trusts-new-farne-islands-ranger/

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it’s a wildlife enthusiast’s dream – promising jaw-dropping sunrises, a one minute commute and one of England’s largest seal colonies on your doorstep.

This job isn’t the normal 9 to 5. Being good with PowerPoint isn’t a priority.

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Applications for the position of ranger close on 7 February, 2017. To apply visit:

https://careers.nationaltrust.org.uk/OA_HTML/a/#/vacancy-detail/46353.