TLA AND ASTORIA

MONDAY

We arrive in Astoria around noon. Astoria is a coastal town that sits on the mouth of the Columbia River. Therefore it has many of the characteristics of a port town. This is also where Lewis & Clark reached their destination during their famous voyage from Louisiana to the Pacific. Though much of this country is vastly different now 200 years later, as we approached the ocean we could still envision what it must have been like for them. The historic event still brings summer tourists to the moderately populated area. The downtown sits on a steep hill on the water's edge and is made up of crowded shops, cafes, pubs, and art galleries. At the top of the hill is a tower called the Column that provides an magnificent panoramic view of the area as well as a visual history of the area wrapped around the entire column.

We drove on past all of this and over a bridge to the valleys & hills of the coastal side of town. This is the location of the home where we would be staying for the next week. On the top of a 100 ft. high steep hill we found the house we were looking for. As we drove up we saw a pasture with 2 milking goats, many various fruit trees, a large barn, and an English Tutor style house. We parked our car in the shade of a tree and walked up to the house. Our hosts Christopher and Caren greeted us as we walked up and we immediately felt at home. After a short introduction they began giving a tour of the house and grounds. The couple run a non-profit educational center called the Titanic Lifeboat Academy lifeboat.postcarbon.org from here on the property. Their efforts to create a sustainable lifestyle in response to the impending peak oil crisis was obvious from the first minute of the tour. They have installed both solar panels and a wind turbine to support their electrical needs, grown an impressive organic garden on the South side of the house that provides ample produce, built a greenhouse for the winter crops, collect milk from their goats for their dairy and eggs from their chickens for their protein needs, set up a barn for their livestock and stocked it with carpentry tools for repairs & harvesting lumber to support household maintenance, and they recycle everything they can. Another admirable trait of this couple is their work within the community. Christopher is a volunteer firefighter, they are the hosts of a regular radio show on the local non-profit station called The Lifeboat Show (which you can listen to through their website) and they attend many of the community meetings & debates.

Though this is just the exterior of the Lifeboat Academy. Christopher and Caren created a curriculum of education that reflects their lifetime of research in the fields of peak oil, alternative energy, ecology, forestry, animal care, self-sufficiency, food growth, anthropology/culture, civil disobedience, government history, primitive technology, philosophy, bio-politics, green consumerism, and much more. All of this is supported by their large library containing multiple volumes on each topic, available for our us during the stay. They offer a wealth of knowledge to those who come to learn. We felt like children in a candy store, not knowing where to begin. Christopher and Caren helped orchestrate our education based on research that pertained to our conversations.

During the days we worked on gathering and cutting wood from the woods behind the property for firewood, tending to animals and the garden, cataloging the library, and installing a pole barn to protect collected lumber. In the evening we would have the time to focus on what we felt inspired to learn. Both of us agree the experience assisted us in seeing the world more clearly and revealing to us our direction in life.

Today we leave Astoria hoping that we will return again in our future. We will be collecting veggie oil from Cannon Beach, then hiking and camping on the beach. Tomorrow we will hike up the coastal Neahkahnie Mountain which overlooks the water from a height of 1600 ft. Then we will continue south along the coast to Coquille, OR where we are expected at Mountain Home. It may be a while before our next entry so be patient! We are having a wonderful time and want to express our appreciation to our friends and family for your support. Thanks and much love. J&N