I’m taking off tomorrow morning — for a week in and around San José del Cabo. For about 12 years, I went to Baja whenever I could. I kept a 1983 4-wheel drive Toyota truck down there, would fly down, drive 12 miles east of town along the coast, let out air pressure in tires to about 7 lbs and drive 2 miles on the sandy beach to a place gringos called Roosterfish Cove, put up my flea market tarp for shade, unfurl the rooftop tent for sleeping, and hang out for 3-4 days, all alone, surfing, swimming, running on the beach, seldom wearing clothes. In hot months, it was pretty unbearable from 11 AM to 5 PM, but the early mornings and early evenings were exquisite.

It’s been 8 years since I was last there, and I know it’s built up immensely. I’m taking fins. Haven’t surfed in months, due to cold water here and a damaged shoulder. I’ll see what happens down there. I’m staying at a few different places on the beach. Meeting my good friend Chilon when I get there, he’s making lunch for us.

Here are some posts from years back: https://www.lloydkahn.com/?s=baja

Stay tuned.

40-50 people showed up for my talk/slide show Wednesday night at the North House Folk School in Grand Marais. I’m amazed anyone came, it was so cold out. Kindred spirits fer shure.

Us born-and-bred coastal Caifornians are wimps when it comes to weather like this. It was minus 4 degrees F this morning. Sometimes it gets down to -20F, and if the wind is blowing, -40 wind chill factor. When you step outside, the cold attacks you, it’s all you can think of.

Bernie Harberts and his mule Polly were featured in the “On the Road” section of our book Tiny Homes.

“I’ve sailed alone around the world, traveled across America by mule (twice), pedaled a ten dollar bike around Tasmania and walked across Newfoundland with a mule. Most recently, I sailed a wood ketch from the Falkland Islands to South Georgia Island, off Antarctica. From there, we sailed 3 weeks across the iceberg laced Southern Ocean to South Africa.…

For the Lost Sea Expedition series, I traveled 14 months across America in a wagon. Just as I did in North Carolina, I explored things that are particular to an area. This time around, it was horse breakers, Lakota elders, sod hut dwellers, ghost towns and a vanished sea that caught my eye.

I filmed the whole voyage myself – a first ever for a cross-country wagon voyage.…”

lostseaexpedition.com/

This political nightmare we’ve been going through for some months now may have led me to choosing the subject for my next book,

I’ve been  trying to figure out what to do after Small Homes:

• 50 Years of Natural Building

• A book on my trips

• A book on barns

Some kind of context for the 10,000+ photos I’ve taken over the years.

The idea about a book on the USA popped into my head a few days ago. This would be my version of America. It would start with me riding the rails and hitchhiking from San Francisco to New York in 1965, along with a copy of Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous — seeking enlightenment, if you will, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life — as the cultural revolution of the ’60s-’70s unfolded. (Upon return a month later, I quit my job as an insurance broker and went to work as a builder.)

I would show the America that I love, the people in every state who were kind and friendly and helpful, Pop’s Diner in Page, Arizona; press men at Courier Printing in Kendallville, Indiana; squirrel hunters in Tennessee; the waitress in an Oklahoma diner serving me coconut cream pie with coffee at 2:30 AM; farmers, surfers,  skateboarders, lawyers and bankers (yes–there are some good ones); book lovers, musicians, builders; makers…This just may be the next book. The glass-half-full take on America.

Photo above: on a trip to Nevada, Utah, and Arizona in 1989

Hi Lloyd,

Last we spoke, I was telling you about the “Lost Sea Expedition”. It was just mule Polly and me traveling across the USA in our wagon. We were looking for stories behind the Lost Sea, the ancient seabed that once covered the Great Plains.

I filmed the journey without a film crew, support vehicle or sponsor. I charged my camera gear off the solar panel bolted to the wagon roof. Now, that footage has been turned in to the “Lost Sea Expedition” TV series.

First, a bit about the journey:

As I bumped across the USA in my wagon, I folks what they knew about the Lost Sea. Early on, a Lakota elder told me about “buffalo stones” – fossils from a marine creature called a baculite. From there, the story took off in all directions. I thought I was looking for a vanished sea. Instead, I unearthed an all-American web covering topics as far ranging as the Ogallala Aquifer, Creationism, Evolutionism, Prairie Fever ,and Depression-era horse breaking.

Who knew that diving in to the origins of a long vanished sea would turn in to a journey to the heart of America?

2,500-mile wagon route across America

Read More …