After sleeping off a storm in the tiny house on Mount Echo I headed through Ohio and stopped at the Newark Earthworks where Don Moder, the executive director, gave me a personal impassioned history of the indigenous people’s who constructed them. These earthworks are huge and amazing to hike around in. I can’t wait to come back and investigate the infamous Serpent Mound in Southern Ohio with some of my tiny house friends!

 

You never know who you might meet at the next rest or truck stop!

I met some ‘schoolies’ who had incorporated their perfectly level, floating DJ table right into their tiny home on wheels. Austin and Troy of noblesavage_us, please come to the Tiny House Jamboree!

That red truck cab in the left corner was being repaired at the truck stop I slept at that night. Yikes, the cab was as long as my tiny – 18′!

And there is always time to give an impromptu tour to a lovely group of ‘tiny curious’ women. I’m in there somewhere!

 

However, that was not the only excitement of the day. I had my first FB tiny house stalker who found me! LOL. She’s a really great gal, a trucker. No wonder she figured out where I was. I wish I had heard here knock at the door. We could have had a slumber party!

 

 

 

I headed for Fairfield, Iowa, the global capital of Transcendental Meditation training. I parked along the side of the town square and had fun looking at all the mini-libraries.

 

The Silver Bullet was toured by Maharishi University professors, students, neighbors and the ‘tiny house curious’ as it sat at the Seed Center, in the middle of an idyllic farm field.Met so many lovely folks that really appreciated the net zero, all renewable energy tiny house I designed and built based on bio-mimicry.And everyone seems to enjoy my Tuftex awnings. Who knew?

The Midwest is mostly flat. I grew up in Minnesota. It’s the beef belt, the dairy belt, the cheese belt, the corn belt and the wheat belt. So I could hardly wait to get to Colorado and the mountains! Because my July workshop venue got cancelled I would now have three weeks of vacation for myself! Yippee! I haven’t had one in five years, it’s about time.

And my daughter tells me I was featured in the Boston Globe. Woot, woot!

By the time I got to my parking spot I was so sick I could barely stand. Oh yeah, AMS, an acute case of elevation or mountain sickness. The vertigo and congestion kept me from climbing up to the loft. Thankfully I got over it by resting and drinking tons of water. I spent my 2nd weeks of vacation in Colorado Springs playing tourista visiting sites I hadn’t seen since the 1980’s!

I visited a friend in Fort Garland who built his own tiny and have hosted many dinner-tours at the Silver Bullet with other tinyhousers and friends. I am currently completing two books and prepping my booth for the 2016 Tiny House Jamboree! I’ll be in Vendor Booth #13 next to Onduline and Unforgettable Fire (Kimberly stoves) so come on by for some tiny house talk and sustainable lifestyle education! My sustainable lifestyle workshop is being held on Saturday morning 9:30-10:00AM at the workshop area! Hope to see you there.

A few more interesting tiny house questions (and answers) from this touring/workshop segment:

1. “What do you mean your house breathes like an animal?” I’ve lived in several parts of the country where my homes suffered from too much moisture and mold (Atlanta,Asheville) and I wanted to design a non-toxic net zero home that would have the ability to dry itself off and maintain decent air quality. I did that by designing an innovative vented roof, baffles, eave vents and rain screen layers based on biomimicry. Read more here.
2. “What are those adorable little spherical windows?” Derek Diedricksen, my tiny house mentor, turned me onto those 4 years ago, they are available here.
3. “Why are you already needing a 2nd generation solar system?” My first generation solar system was two 1450Yeti Goal Zero packages. I found both the batteries bulky, because you have to have them inside and plug everything into them. That means cords all over the place and it is unsightly. Also, I found that they could not guarantee their panels would last for more than 825 charges. Plus after 8 months, the batteries had issues. After doing a keynote speech at the Georgia Tiny House Festival last year, I met some fellows from Renogy, a Canadian firm. I watched their demonstration, raised the funds for a robust 2000W system and it works beautifully for me most of the year with only 2-250W/24V panels; in the winter, I use all four panels in New England.

This segment’s lessons were learned the hard way:

1. Sometimes your back end will need a lift. Timbrens will help Hi Ho Silver (my Ford 250 SuperDuty) haul my 9,280 lb. Silver Bullet and all my solar panels and tools. My anti-sway bars also help.
2. Make sure you bring leveling blocks with you wherever you park.
3. Try to suppress your disgust when revisiting pristine state and national parks when you see how they have changed after 40 years.
4. It never gets old to see the excitement when folks visit and tour your net zero, all renewable tiny house.
5. Hiking and walking in nature always brings a smile while soothing the soul.