Gentle Landing

Hello Friends and Family,

Thanks to everyone for reading, commenting, supporting, and to Justin and Garrett for posting.

So, if you remember about a week and a half ago I traveled to visit and document RidgeCrest Farm that is an off-grid fledgling community working towards being largely self-sufficient with large vegetable gardens that run in terraces along the mountain side, ponds for growing rice, solar and wind power and blueberries for sale to the public.  I had the chance to witness many of these systems in action, however the storming on top of the mountain was so unrelenting that I didn't end up taking many pictures.  Below is a photo of my friend Cayce who I met at the farm.  He and I worked amidst the winds, snow, hail, rain and everything else nature through at us while helping at the farm.  In the end, we ended up helping refurbish a stone house that to our delight we used to dry ourselves and our things that were perpetually becoming sopping wet.

Cayce in stone house with freshly scrubbed floors and walls, and a refinished fireplace.  In contrast to the wailing storms outside, the tiny house was warm and dry!

I spent a week at RidgeCrest and then took my first opportunity to descend from the mountain top, which led me back to Santa Cruz.  I spent one hour on CouchSurfing.org at the local library, and then within 20 minutes of being at the Farmer's Market, the first person I spoke with offered me a place to sleep for the night.  Thank You Isaac for the warm welcome!  Sometimes speaking to people is just more effective than computer communication.

As it turned out Isaac lives at the SuperFoods Co-operative, which is one of the many Co-ops in Santa Cruz focussing on alternative communal living.  Naturally, I was stoked.

Isaac gave directions to the Co-op, and said to look out for the bus.

"For the benefit of all beings, this bus runs on free recycled vegetable oil." The bus parked at the SuperFoods Co-op.

What a beautiful bus to discover.  This paint-job depicts a village scene with hand-dug canoes and the crashing waves of the ocean.

Front side of the bus.

But SuperFoods Co-op is not just a bus!  They also have a main house and two smaller resident buildings in their backyard.

Living room at SuperFoods Co-op with products stacking the shelves, and Harley, a customer who purchased some Spirulina.

The Co-op sells all kinds of foods recognized as nutritiously 'super', and uses the income to support resident livelihoods.  Examples of foods for sale include those listed above as well as many others such as raw organic cacao, jungle peanuts, mesquite, and local raw honeys. 

I interviewed Ben Goodwin, the founder of the Superfoods Co-op.  A business school graduate, he said the original vision for the Co-op was to bring together progressive people - cheifly young entreprenuers and artists - and use the Co-op as a networking hub for skill-building and projects within the alternative movement.

The Superfoods Co-op operates also as a networking and resource hub.  The Library at Superfoods includes Native American History, Yoga Anatomy, Spiritual Growth literature, Edible Plants and more.  The poster on top of the bookshelf is by Alex Grey, a New York-based artist especially popular with the neo-spiritual culture.

The Superfoods Co-op in Santa Cruz bred a family of other Superfoods Co-ops in California, with the most fruitful offspring located in San Francisco, and Berkeley.  The main challenge the Co-ops have faced, as Ben related to me, is that the earth-friendly alternative people targeted by the Co-ops haven't always been able to uphold the work-ethic necessary to keep the Co-ops functioning as originally envisioned.  Reflecting on this predicament, Ben quoted a Zen saying:  'Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.'  Fair enough!  The full audio recording of the Superfoods interview will be available later.

While at the Co-op, I've had the chance to meet all kinds of interesting and kind people - the vision of a networking hub seems realized to me! - and also found out that due to the excessive storming in the area sections of Highway 1 South, the highway I intended to walk, have fallen into the ocean.   My intended trajectory from Santa Cruz was to walk to Big Sur, roughly 70 miles south, however with news of damaged highway, I've decided to also break from the P.E.D.A.L. project for the time being, about two weeks sooner than I originally planned.

So, again, thanks for all the support and wonderful stories along the way.  You are all beautiful beings, and it has been a wild and illuminating trip from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where I started on bicycle almost five months ago, to Santa Cruz, California, United States, where I am now.

Blessings,

Steve