First, turn off the intrusive sound track.
By Chiara Fiorillo News Reporter
16 Sep 2023
A hermit may have lived in a precarious house perched on the side of a cliff in California for the past 10 years — but nobody seems to know who the man actually is.
A dilapidated three-storey structure, made of driftwood, was first spotted at Devil’s Slide in the San Francisco Bay Area in December 2022, when it was filmed by a drone. Stunned onlookers said the intriguing home was partially destroyed during the rainstorms that hit the Bay Area earlier this year but has since been rebuilt.
Drone operator @ParallaxEffect, who posted footage of the driftwood shack on YouTube, said he was hiking along the California coast with some friends when they noticed the property, which he described as “one of the most incredible human structures I’ve ever seen”.
The shack appears to have several rooms and is located on the steep San Mateo County rock face. The video shows wood and ropes in the structure as well as a boxing punching bag, several buoys, some old signs, and what appears to be a fully enclosed room.
On Google Earth, the shack appears to have a rope rising from it, which is linked to the Devil’s Slide trail above — and it may possibly be used as a means of entry and exit. A Google Maps satellite image also seems to show the structure intact as waves crash onto the rocks beneath it.
www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/mystery-hermit-living-cliffside-shack-30955761
If you look at the left, there appears to be a cave or tunnel. When blown up, there appears to be a pathway of rocks leading into it.???
In my years of photographing driftwood shacks for the book: Driftwood Shacks: Anonymous Architecture Along the California Coast, I never saw anything faintly resembling this.
Wow!!
Thanks to Jeff Sinder and Ruth Kneass
Tags: adventures, architecture, California, camping, design, driftwood shacks, exploring, natural building, natural materials, recycling, tiny houses, tinyhome, tinyhouse A few of the photos from wonderful FREE PDF book by photographer Richard Blair, Inverness, California:
Signs by Richard Blair (Click to view entire book.)
1988 Mitsubishi Delica van of Sam and Raquel, who call themselves the YogaSlackers. They’ve done a lot of maintenance and building on the van and take major trips, one of them up to the Arctic Circle.
In our latest book Rolling Homes.
Note: See comments by YogaSlackers!
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Tags: adventures, campers, camping, DIY, exploring, home, nomad, nomadlife, off-road, on the road, rolling home, tiny homes on the move, tiny homes on wheels, vanlife, vans, vehicles 
My Santa Cruz roommate George Kovalenko and I went down the San Lorenzo River on our surfboards in 1955, during the biggest flood in Santa Cruz history.
The water was up over the parking meters on the main street. It was a gray, drizzly day, and George and I put in by Paradise Park and got swept down the river, along with cars, uprooted trees, sections of houses, and refrigerators. Every bridge across the river had collapsed; it was pretty scary.
Morons!
When we got out down by the ferris wheel at the river mouth, the cops said they were going to arrest us, but they got diverted by other emergencies and we slipped away.
These 67-year old photos were almost illegible. Rick Gordon performed some Photoshop magic to get this much out of them.
Note: I was interviewed by Jessica York, a reporter for the Santa Cruz Sentinel yesterday for an article on our adventure.
Sunday morning I wanted to give Lukas a break, so set off on foot in search of coffee and adventure.
Wasn’t finding a cool coffee shop, when a guy walked up and said “Lloyd!” … in a city of 3½ million people.
Bernd Lützelberger was a carpenter, a fan of our books, and we went to very cool espresso bar and hung out for a while.
Then off on my own, It was a quiet Sunday morning, and the good city vibes were extraordinary.
There is somehow a feeling of freedom in Berlin. Go figure.
Lukas came along with his bike and 4-year-old high-energy daughter Luna and we walked along waterways and in parks; I totaled seven miles that day.
Brought to mind JFK’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” of 1963 in what was then West Berlin.
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I’m — pardon the expression — blown away by this city of 3½ million people, with its distinctly good vibes, say like Ojai, Calif., where you feel it as soon as you come into town. But here it’s on a huge scale, it’s pretty flat, trees in all streets, dozens of lakes with clear water that people swim in, multi-ethnic in food and everything else, somehow a feeling of creative freedom…
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Brilliant simple van setup by Sam Ausden, who is pulling an equally brilliant trailer built with SIPs (structural insulated panels) with solar panels powering a big air conditioner and a 14kw 48-volt battery.
His units were on display at the TinyFest Festival last weekend.
There are 17 $8 milk crates holding everything. They are held snug with powerful magnets. Simple, cheap, practical, lightweight.
Quite a contrast with expensive, overbuilt, heavy Sprinter van conversions.
www.zerohouse.co
instagram.com/tallmaninavan
Tags: adventures, design, exploring, house truck, nomadlife, off-road, off-the-grid, on the road, rolling home, tiny homes on the move, tiny homes on wheels, vanlife, vans, vehicles 
21 years ago, I got to go up to the top of the southern tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. Three of us spent about 45 minutes up there, on a warm September night. It was one of the greatest thrills of my life, and also the first time I used a digital camera (a small Fujifilm model).
When I get some more time (if ever!), I’ll post the story, along with the photos.
And also, the story of my friend Jeff starting on the roadway of the north tower at dusk, going up along the cable (with carabiners attached to the handrail cables), climbing to the top of the northern tower, back down to the roadway, up to the top of the southern tower, and making it to the toll gate by dawn the next morning. Not for persons of the faint hearted persuasion.
Here’s what I wrote about it originally (the format is weird because this was when I was using Blogspot, and it’s not compatible with WordPress (or something like that):
blog.shelterpub.com/shelter/_lloyd/bridge_top.html
Casey and Ryan Higginbotham are raising money for a film of their 7-month 2200-mile voyage on paddleboards from Alaska to Tijuana: www.kickstarter.com/projects/byhandfilm/by-hand-the-film
See also:
Classic conversions feature fiberglas fenders and hood to reduce weight, among other modifications. When you let air out of tires, can drive on soft sand. Popular throughout Baja.
