The Western Grey Whales. Magnificent Mammals That Migrate 14,000 Miles Annually...

These magnificent whales migrate fourteen thousand miles every year just because it's what they do and it's what they've always done.
A study of three Western Grey Whales, each fitted with satellite monitored tags were found by Russian and US researches to have traveled from their primary feeding grounds off Russia's Sakhalin Island, across the Pacific Ocean, down the west coast of California to Baji, Mexico and after not so much as a quick cup of tea, head back home again.
There's thought to be around one hundred and fifty of these wonderful creatures left in the oceans of our world and they've been monitored along with the Eastern Grey Whale since the 1990's. Five have perished in the last decade in Japanese fishing nets and their future remains precarious, having to contend with commercial fishing, shipping and oil and gas fields.
The Western Grey's descendents date back thirty million years. With a bit of luck they'll be around a few million more... 

Bobby Heffelfinger Created This Beautiful Mobile Art Studio...

Lloyd Kahn featured this simple and beautiful mobile art studio on The Shelter Blog recently.
Built by Bobby Heffelfinger in California's West Marin County on a Ford F.350 truck using mostly recycled materials, it's used by a landscape painter as a go almost anywhere studio.
It could be a wonderful little home on wheels...

Mr Sharkey, Doyen Of Our Housetrucking Fraternity Celebrates Forty Years Of Alternative Lifestyling...

One of the best known characters of the worldwide Housetrucking fraternity and a source of all knowledge, especially relating to North American housetrucks and buses, celebrated forty years of alternative lifestyling recently.
Mr Sharkey was reminiscing with me and
I thought I'd share a little of him with you.
Forty years ago on October 10th, 1974, 
I purchased a 1962 Chevrolet C40 moving van from Crest Cabinet shop in Los Angeles, California with the intent of turning it into a dwelling and escaping the hell-hole and human-zoo of that city. 
On the way home, it was barely running, there was a huge Y-shaped crack in the windscreen, and the brakes were mostly for wishful thinking. 
I pulled into a Mobil service station 
to put some gas in it. 
There were two diminutive Japanese men attending the station, and they got quite a lot of merriment from my asking for $1.00 worth of regular grade petrol. They walked around the truck, throwing their arms wide and repeating "One dolla!!! One dolla!!! HAHAHAHA!!!", obviously enjoying the fact that I wasn't going to be getting very far in this big truck 
on a couple of gallons. 
Gas was $0.50 a gallon then.
Here's to the next forty years my friend...

Some Of The World's Richest People Have Everything Except What They Desperately Need. Water...

Surprisingly to some, the mega rich like the rest of us, also have to take their hats off to have their hair cut, and the billionaires of California's Montecito where a few of the world's wealthiest reside in some of the most opulent homes on the planet, are, much to their dismay, finding they're having to face some of the same problems as the world's poorest and homeless.
They're fast discovering that their immense wealth doesn't guarantee them the essentials of life, like water. In fact strangely enough, their vast fortunes could be hindering their ability to cope as they find a simple order given to a servant is not sufficient to get them what isn't available and their extravagant lifestyles make them personally ill-equipped to deal with this sort of problem solving.
And water storage facilities like Lake Cachuma are drying up in dramatic fashion, the rich state of California is in crisis, facing the worst drought in history as every day without rain transforms it into what it once was.
A desert...

Why Would American Dave Rahimi Fly From California To Sydney Australia To Buy The Very First Apple iPhone6...

Why would American Dave Rahimi fly all the way from California to Sydney Australia to buy the very first iPhone6 other than Apple's Sydney store was, because of the time difference, the first store in the world to open it's doors?
And why would Moon Ray and her husband from Jackson Mississippi wait in line complete with solar chargers, thermal mats, inflatable chairs and mattresses and a membership of the local YMCA so they could have showers, for nineteen days to purchase the first iPhone6 from New York's Fifth Avenue Apple Store?
Five minutes of fame? Something to tell their grandchildren? To impress?
To define who they are as a person?
Who would know, but Apple sold ten million phones to their faithful worshipers in the first three days of the product launch...

The Cosmic Collider. Ryan Lovelace's Quirky 1948 Chevy Housebus...

Ryan Lovelace, surfboard maker and surfer from California's Santa Barbara bought this 1948 Chevy bus awhile ago, ripped it apart and built it again adding a penthouse to The Cosmic Collider. An open interior, with everything that's needed including a wood burning stove for simple living. I especially like the gutter that runs around the interior. An ideal place to grow herbs and other living green things...

Tim And Hannah's Tiny Mortgage Free Off Grid Cabin Deserves A Big Round Of Applause...

Tim and Hannah's tiny mortgage free off grid cabin with all its innovative, simple and easy to do ideas is deserving of a big round of applause. In fact I'm giving it a standing ovation.
As far as a back to basics tiny home is concerned this little handmade and beautifully rustic 196 square foot cabin in the woods would make even Thoreau proud.
The couple were fortunate enough to have twenty acres of land in California's beautiful Tahoe country and with no blueprints to constrict their imaginations they set about creating and building a space for simply living or should that be living simply.
They've been doing just that for the last couple of years and who knows, may very well keep on doing it forever...

This Amazing Piece Of Architecture Is Hidden In California's Mohave Desert...

This amazing house was designed by Kendrick Bangs Kellogg in 1988.
It's called The Desert House and is described as the most important architectural house you may have never seen. It is so the description goes, physically part of the desert, at one with its surroundings. The strength of the land and rugged protective shell exterior is drawn from the desert. The textures provide the touch and feel of the desert as the building materials were selected from the same place.
The property, on the market for only three million dollars as the owners have decided to downsize, highlights the masculine and feminine forms that are the hallmark of organic architecture.
Here's a link to some more images including some of the interior which was designed by John Vigrin and that sadly I considered to be so ugly
I couldn't bring myself to post them...