This is a brilliant way to add square footage. A minimal, lightweight, inexpensive roof and deck give you an expanded living area (during good weather). The warmer the climate, the better this works. You can barbecue, eat, and socialize out on the deck.

I saw a place in Baja where the gringo owner, who came there only periodically, had built a small concrete block unit with a steel door where he locked up and stored all his stuff. He had a large roofed-over with a split bamboo covering for shade; when he came down to his land, he opened up the unit, pulled everything out (including hammocks), and lived mostly outside.

In Costco parking lot in Novato, Calif. last Friday. Makes me want to jump in and head for Baja…

On Lake Street in San Francisco last week

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. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU209vIy0KI

  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.

Boy am I havin fun! It’s been a perfect week down here. In the water at 7:30 this morning, a shower and now latte and raisin roll and good wi-fi. I wish I had more time to do stuff like this. Idea! I’ll make a little short-run book of the trip. Where’s my clone, anyway?

It’s so easy down here now, and it was so hard 20-30 years ago. My great little Baja bug was under water twice, I had a sketchy relationship with the cunning landlord of the palapa I rented (for $1,000 a year), the place was destroyed in a hurricane of Nov 4 cuatro de Noviembre in the ’90s, and on…

Now there’s a smoothly paved road 12 mi. out to Shipwrecks. Funny, there don’t seem to be many people around at all. Part of that being wealthy people buying (or building) trophy houses that they rarely visit. Summer’s the south-swell surfing season down here and Nov-Dec-Jan are prime times for people fleeing cold climes, but March seems perfect, it’s really comfortable, cool at night and April winds haven’t started. Surprisingly, I found nno mention of the surf online. There’s nothing like checking out the surf in person.

 I still love San José del Cabo. Wandering around the quiet streets. Last night at dusk, Chilón and I walked down to the palm grove by the San José river; it was—the perfect Spanish word—tranquillo. Tortillas de nopales in a little roadside shack, with la cocinera patting out fresh tortillas…

My Instagram on the web this morning came out like a poster for the past few days:

https://www.instagram.com/lloyd.kahn/?hl=es