One woman’s journey to the good life
In 1989, my husband and I left Boulder, Colorado, moved to and then left overcrowded San Diego, and finally landed in a wild corner of an old sheep ranch angled across steep coastal hills in Mendocino County.
It’s not easy to get here. GPS can’t pinpoint our place on a map. So whenever someone drives up here for the first time, we provide detailed directions. In the early days before cellphone coverage improved, we had to drive out to the paved road and escort everyone back because—as we learned the hard way— some people feel deeply uncomfortable being lost in deep forest, so uncomfortable that they won’t ever come back.
From town, drive 9 miles west toward the ocean up a twisting mountain road. Turn off at the line of mailboxes on left and re-set your odometer.
When we first moved here, you couldn’t hear anything but the breeze moving through the feathery limbs of redwoods and Douglas fir. We spent hours sitting in the tall grass of the open hillside, just listening and looking.
The place was rugged, but being mountaineers from Colorado, we figured the steep terrain would keep us fit. It has.
We built a small off-grid home with all the conveniences and all on one level to compensate for the terrain outdoors. And here, mostly retired from the world of nine-to-five, we live a simple life of endless chores, community-building, vegetable gardening, travel, and writing. From here, we launch ourselves in the bigger world and bring you back trip reports from near and far.
Go exactly 3.1 miles due west along the main dirt road, turn up a short steep hill, go through a green cattle gate and then deep forest until you see a lattice fence and gate on the right. You’ve arrived.
I share our life in hopes it inspires you to travel, seek and tend to nature in your community, settle for less stuff and more quiet, and discover the diverse people in your own neck of the woods.
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Email tpzranch6165@gmail.com