This is an old picture from Alaska this summer. It’s the Alaganik Slough (slew) at sunset. It’s my current desktop background.

And, I’m quite happy here so far!

Well, so far the trip has gone without any real trouble. I made it to Charlie’s cabin in Franklin, NC on Tuesday night, and left Wednesday afternoon. The truck had been acting up the whole trip, and wouldn’t run well enough to make the climb up his mountain. He towed me to a parking space, and Wednesday we found that the distributor cap and rotor were corroded beyond salvage, and the wires and plugs were pretty much junk too. Luckily I got out of that break down for $55.

Leaving there, I took I-40 to Sante Fe, NM, where I’ve been visiting my friend Jess and her roomates. Today we got a rental truck from Lowe’s, and headed to the Sante Fe National Forest to cut several truck loads of wood for the winter.

I’ve done a lot of walking around San Francisco this trip. This morning I stumbled up to the marina district, and took a tour of a WWII diesel submarine. It was self guided, and there were no other’s on it during my self-guided tour. Pretty neat to have all that time to check it out. Most of the cool stuff is protected behind lexan covers.

The pups and I walked down to Piano Acres this afternoon for exercise and to snap some photos. Piano Acres is a defunct hippy commune up the road from my cabin. Since all the old newspapers I found around the property are dated 1985, I assume this is the approximate time that the hippy folks departed. The land is now owned by a fellow from CT, and it’s falling into ruin slowly. I’ve been going out there for about 10 years now for walks. The main cabin was built using slip forms, which Helen & Scott Nearing talked about in The Good Life. I made a slideshow of the afternoon photos, which you can see by clicking on the picture below. Enjoy!

Well, I finally landed a job. I’ll be heading out to San Francisco around the 24th of this month in my new truck camper.

You can see that this is a popup style camper, designed to be light and more aerodynamic than standard slide-ins. It has that cheasy, camper feel to it, but it will work out well for what I need. There is a 3-burner stove, sink, refrigerator, toilet, and plenty of storage spaces.

My new job is “Senior Air Quality Instrument Specialist” for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD). I’m anxious to do some more travelling, and the area surrounding San Fran looks inviting to the weekend camper/hiker.

Here it is. I finally, after 10 years, have all the siding and trim on my cabin, and it’s stained! This is an amazing feat for me. Something finished. It has made a big difference not having a job to go to.

you can never go back… I think that old saying must be about painting your shed. Hmm. It would definately be hard to cover this color!