Tom the tie-dye man. There shall one day be a song written about this fellow. He was a vendor set up on King's Beach in Lake Tahoe selling clothing while we played music next to his tent. Tom was one of the friendliest people I have ever come to known as we had good times enjoying the fireworks and learning new material on the instruments. The last night at Tahoe, we stayed overnight at the casino parking lot and decided to follow him back to his house nestled in the mountains a couple of hours away from the lake. If Tom was any less of the the utmost kindness I don't believe we would have made it there since it was somewhat skeptical when he asked that we turn off our phones if we came to visit his place "Off the Grid".
Off the grid may be an understatement for this place as we weaved in and out of sharp turns and steep grade along the gravel road for miles of forest. A very fascinating fellow, Tom lived in a self sustaining community of less than fifteen or so people for a annual cost of less than $1,000. Everything that ran in his household were run by large solar panels located outside next to the chicken pen. All of their food and agriculture was grown on the lot and gave them little reason to need to leave the area but maybe once a month. Thankfully we were able to complete our laundry the old school way as we hung up our clothes to dry on line and clothes pins outside. We decided to stay there for the night and enjoy the quietness and solitude of living off of the grid.
He was a joyous man, not caring for money, or the problems and drama involved with the normal life. He liived in the real world and loved every moment of it. The night was ended with a few cases of Sierra Nevada, a candlelight sushi dinner, and warm saki to finish it off. Tom, the tie-dye, barefoot, hippie will be met up again in the future, that is if I ever remember how the heck we ended up to his house.
We left off the grid, california to head towards San Franciso wheere we spent little time in Golden Gate park enjoying the floral and nature arrangements they had there. From San Franciso, we left north on Hwy 1 which is the coastal road from the city all the way to Oregon passing through the Redwood National Forest. After the long, windy ride of the cload covered coastal road, we camped out in the Redwoods for a few days also stopping my Arcata in Humboldt county. (Which is known to be the top marijuana growing region in all of America.) I ran into another traveler there that I had met in Detroit, Michigan and some other mutal friends before we hit the road past the large, ancient trees on the way to Oregon.
Seems that there are many "kids" up in the Northwest. When I refer to kids I mean the rainbow family gathering folk, which many of them get by solely by asking for free handouts. There has been many bums and spangers I have seen lately along with musicians which makes it tougher to play music for funds. Scott the painter I worked with for a month, although one of the nicest fellows, has been one of the most irresponsible as he still owes me $600 for my work in Michigan and I am broke once again trying to figure out the best route to play some banjo or get some extra work done.
Then again "money" is not the key to my journey. Nor is begging for it.
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