Running On Empty
I got a fortune cookie a few weeks ago… And despite the fact that I only recently got back from Europe, have no money and promised myself I wouldn’t take off traveling with 0$ again…. That no good fortune cookie decided it was “time for you to take off on an adventure”… what a tease…
A few days ago I started making arrangements for my next trip, a 6 month tour of the US. Not that I take my orders from cookies or anything, It just so happened that my arctic house building job fell through, and breaking my self promises to go off traveling again was always plan B…
Well I opened another fortune cookie today… And unbelievably… The little bastard proudly proclaimed:
“You are going to travel somewhere far away”
Now, at the risk of giving these fortune cookies some kind of god complex, I still plan to head south this summer. But you just gotta love when the universe is singing the same tune as you…
I’ve been in Ottawa since January, it’s now May, that’s like *counts fingers* 5 fuckin months in 1 place… You might be able to do that, hell, 99.9% people can do that, and not think twice. But me… im wired differently… after only a few weeks… I’m already buggin out and dying to leave… Not that I can’t ever live in the moment, cause trust me, I’ve lived in some excellent moments… I just cant help but think of all the things im not experiencing, the people im not meeting, all the places in the world that I need to see before I die… and the 60… the 30… ok… realistically… the 10 more years I have left is not enough to see it all…
This will be the first time I incorporate WWOOFing into my travels. Which means I will be stopping along the way, sometimes for a week, sometimes for a few, to volunteer on organic farms. In exchange for my hard work, I will be given food, a bed, and by the end of it, a wicked tan. 
Ive never worked on a farm before, but its a pretty important skill to have. When oil starts running on empty, modern industrialized agriculture will no longer be a viable option. Organic farms and Urban agriculture will be the solution, and people with experience on them will have a very important skill set that people will be hungry for… (that’s right, bad puns will be a mainstay of this blog!)
The second part of my trip will be networking… I will be trying to hit up some of Americas most alternative cities, and stay in as many squats as possible.. You see, one of my dreams is to start a squat in Vancouver, and then fight to keep it, and then start another… and keep it too… and so on… I feel Vancouver is the perfect place for a European style squatting movement to take off in Canada… And with Portland, Seattle and San Fransisco so close, I’m sure we would have allies. So by this time next year I hope to be breaking down some doors and helping to set up a beachhead! And it all starts with this summers tour. 
As always I will be couchsurfing as much as possible, and to get around, I will be hitchhiking, something I’ve never done in the Eastern/Southern US… So that should be interesting… :/
I leave on the 26th… Starting with an CS Urban Exploration gathering in Detroit… And then… South…Hopefully adventures will follow, and hopefully you will stick around to read them.
Peace
River
