In the gospel Matt (nobody who knows him calls him Matthew) one of the disciples asks Jesus what they're supposed to take with them to spread the word. I'm gonna paraphrase a bit, but the Big J tells him "takes your shoes, a walking stick, and your faith." Often the right thing to take is nothing. When we headed cross-country last year we went from an 1800 sq ft house into a 74 sq ft trailer (disregarding the shameful tipi incident) Over the course of 8 months we went from back-patting ourselves about our nomadic ways to drinking heavily in a trailer park. Our desperation lead us to Justin and Lina's ranch for troubled gypsies and our plans to be here for a month or two turned into seven. This place has been the first fertile ground our kentucky-blown seed has fallen on and we've started to take root in Oregon thanks to their family. If we hadn't been in the trailer, we couldn't have ended up here and here was where we needed to be for a while. 
(photo: mary's peak summit, highest peak in the coastal range, with sarah and sebastion)Tiffany and I are fundamentally uncomfortable with doing things normally. It keeps things around here lively (using a rickshaw to take stella to the playground or the shameful tipi incident for example) and makes for interesting conversations like "I'd live in a school bus if it had a deck and a hot tub." or "What if we lived in a pontoon boat and kayaked to shore for work?" The exception to our quest for novel approaches to housing is a particular farmhouse on our regular bike loop that we always always covet a little. It looks like the setting we would choose if we had to direct an autobiography about ourselves. And although I can't realistically cast a young Paul Newman as myself, it looks like we can at least get the house thanks to the rental section on craigslist. We move next week and for the first time in a long time we'll have room for guests, so come on; there's beer in the fridge and the toilet actually works. (cheers to all of guests this summer who slept in a tent on the porch and didn't mind me running the sewage pump while they showered)
(photo: the world's greatest campsite in northern washington)
After sarah and sebastion left, we headed up to Van Couver BC to intersect with my parents on their way to alaska. Van Couver is pretty amazing with the thousand acre Stanley Park in the city and incredible infrastructure for bikes, pedestrians, and public transit. Nonetheless, Tiffany and I independently arrived at the conclusion that Van Couver is strangely like Miami. Lots of small dogs and big hooters. (eerily big; at some point there's enough saline in there that just walking around qualifies as playing in the ocean)
stella with mild nose trauma but undaunted (unbridled even) spirit after a nosedive out of a restaurant chair
