I had several out of town trips in 2010. The longest was part of a speaking tour in California. With so much great info to share about making the world a better place, I organized a speaking tour which took me to about 20 cities and towns in Washington State, Oregon and California. It was quite an experience. I met many others with similar ideals and I saw a lot of geography that was fascinating too.

I could not believe this bit of suburbia in Cameron Park, in the Sierra foothills east of Sacramento. All the houses have airplanes and the streets are where they taxi to the neighborhood runway to take off and land. What you see here is only half the street. Some houses had two planes.

Making a presentation in Chico. I really enjoyed the several days in Chico. Presentation were about living more local and green.

Yosemite Falls. A friend, Cathe' and I spent several days in Yosemite. This was in April, still plenty of snow.

N St. Co Housing in Davis, CA. An entire suburban block has taken down thier fences and built a community house. Its retrofit co-housing.

I visited an activist Quaker group in Visalia. They had 30 acres of land a group of them lived on. They are working to turn Quaker Oaks into a community learning center for peace and ecological living.

This is a church garden where I spoke in Oxnard. A very nice community garden that was generating a lot of community interest.

On the beach in Ventura. Turns out, I had been surfing at this same beach fifteen year before. Its Earth Day.

This several acre commercial garden, near Santa Barbara, is a regional land mark for resisting suburbia. Its surrounded by suburban development

This scene at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. A student group had a conference to empower environmental activism and invited me to speak.

The beach near San Simeon. These are sea elephants, with the big snouts. They are amazing, flipping sand all over the place and making these great gurgling noises. The males posture and compete for females and space.

Ken's place in Santa Cruz. Lots of edible landscaping. The whole place has a fragrance of chai. Ken picks up fresh chai grounds from a local business and mulches with them.

Richmond Neighborhood in San Francisco. Imagine these green spaces between houses after ten years of permaculture.

San Francisco, on the ferry to Sausalito with San Francisco pal Nancy.

Parts of San Francisco have a high level of urban quality of life. Commercial and residential, street life, even recreation. The Mission District combines all of this.

Nancy on her way to work.

San Andreas Fault. Right here. The view in the foto is where I am standing. The ground shifted 18 feet! This north of San Francisco, close to where the fault heads out to sea at Tomales Bay. The Bay is a very distinctive feature on a map.

I stayed here in Santa Rosa with Grace and Carl. This new permaculture back yard is nice. The semi underground water cistern is visible to the left. The City of Santa Rosa helped pay for it because of increasing concerns about water.

This really impressive church garden in Santa Rosa is part of the local food bank and attracts a lot of volunteers.

Transforming suburbia at Richard Heinberg's house in Santa Rosa. Lots of food forest.

Open space? Next to Santa Rosa Co-Housing is a many acre opportunity. There had been a plan for this several mile long open space to become a freeway. That doesn't look likely now so many nearby citizens are advocating developing the open space [this is only a part a small part of it] area into park, habitat, community gardens, bike paths.

Port Orford looking back to Humbug Mountain. Home stretch to Eugene. I had never see the horizon so crisp along the Oregon coast. Twelve years earlier, I had a great surfing session right here. Waves were over head.

Amazing phenomena. The clouds frequently just evaporate as they pass over the crest of the Cascades. This is a world class rain shadow. Western Oregon is temperate rainforest. Eastern Oregon is high desert. I was driving to Bend to make a presentation. Cloudy in Eugene, all the way to the pass, and then, 2 miles later, it was clear.

Bikes making ready to head out on a week eco bike tour of the southern Willamette Valley with Common Circle Education.

September at Port Townsend, Washignton. I was making a visit to check out a great citizen - governement collaboration called neighborhood mapping. This scene is where the Strait of Juan de Fuca meets Puget Sound.

I stayed with Judy in Port Townsend. She is an activist dynamo. Her place has a lot of food growing, here, she uses space thanks to her over the fence neighbor.

This is one of the most amazing contraptions I have ever seen. Its a human powered vehicle that can go on land and water. Note the chains, seat, cranks, bike pedals. 5 people make this go. The tires are very light, like some kind of styrafoam. They float the vehicle when it goes into the water.

I stayed with Jonathan in Seattle. He has done a lot of work reclaiming this terraced hillside with permaculture design. Jonothan also has an off the grid ham radio.

Janaia speaks at the Transition Towns convergence in Seattle, in September. A coming together of people from all over the NW working towards living more local and green.

After the Transition Town convergence was the NW Regional Permaculture Gathering. Several hundred permaculture enthusiasts. Permaculture has a great deal to offer the transition to a more peaceful and healthy world.

Permaculture kitchen, feeding a hungry conference