Another First! We slept in our van in the ferry line in Victoria harbor. It was remarkably more quiet than we expected.

Despite sleeping quite well, 5:15 was way too early in the morning for the alarm to ring. A customs officer knocked on our van window while I dressed and hurried into the cold morning air to purchase our tickets. I dropped our Vanagon's pop-up top and we drove aboard just before six am. I sleepily tucked back to bed as Robyn went upstairs to watch the crossing, especially as the ferry entered a thick fog bank near the mainland.

After breakfast in Port Angeles, we got connected with our Port Townsend host Steve Hamm, who's the communications coordinator of their Local 20/20 group, affiliated with Post Carbon Institute. Steve met us in his biodiesel-powered Mercedes and led us to our first Peak Moment taping site on this peninsula.

Thus Saith Steve Hamm's Mercedes

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An Architect's Environment-Friendly House
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As we drove uphill approaching the house, I noticed the large gleaming galvanized pipe extending two stories high from roof to ground at the back of the house. Another shorter pipe was at the front of the house. Architect Chris Stafford explained during our Peak moment conversation that these rainwater collectors were culverts set in a concrete base, his experiment with a widely available, non-plastic material.

Catching rainwater in a culvert pipe

Chris has long been interested in sustainable building; he helped found and lead the Northwest Sustainable Building organization. He designed his home and studio buildings to be small, compact, using non-toxic materials where possible, and built on 2-foot modules to reduce material waste. Clear glass tubes on the house's south-facing wall create hot water for domestic and space heating, and a heat exchanger is used to ventilate the home.

Chris installed a 2.2 kilowatt photovoltaic system on a pole separate from the buildings. His eyes twinkled as he talked about his power staying on when the entire peninsula was in a blackout for several days. Maybe that outside porch light's gleam could be a beacon to others about what they could do for electrical self-reliance or resilience!

In his short "nugget" after our conversation Chris spoke about our need to think in an expanded way about what are really needs versus our wants. Some of his clients balk at investing in solar electricity or solar thermal systems in their house design, where they don't think twice about adding another bedroom or bathroom. We are not accustomed to thinking of our homes as energy-providers, or resource-collectors--utilities have always been at the ready and plentiful. The emerging wisdom is to include energy-production in our buildings, as Chris's home demonstrates.

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Julian Darley presents to City Officials
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Steve Hamm gave us a delightful quick tour around town, and then we shared a light dinner and wi-fi in historic Port Townsend. Our Victorian-era restaurant overlooked the Sound, where white sails dotted the smooth blue-green water. Steve whipped a few Peak Oil witticisms our way ("we don't mean to scare ya, just want to prepare ya" ) and we were off!

Historic downtown Port Townsend

After dinner we stopped briefly to meet the Local 20/20 Steering Committee. The next morning we were up *very* early to tape Julian Darley's breakfast presentation to local elected officials and candidates. He presented facts about Peak Oil and Natural Gas, and what some municipalities and even nations are doing in response, as for example Sweden's commitment to be fossil-fuel free by 2025, or cities like Portland Metro evaluating their energy vulnerability.

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A Joyous Experiment in Backyard Permaculture
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Judith Alexander obviously delights in her beautiful and productive garden "experiment." Inspired a few years ago to take personal responsibility for the planet's worsening condition, she has transformed her garden plus half her neighbor's unused lot into a verdant paradise with sixty-some varieties of productive plants. We saw several young fruit trees, two long raspberry walls, four huge boxes of already-harvested potatoes, the happy hen house and the wiggly worms compost bin.

She is keeping bees in partnership with a bee-keeper, she told me as we squatted near the bee boxes while taping that segment. I can personally vouch that the bees were busy, plentiful and heavily-laden with bright-orange pollen. Having read The Secret Life of Bees earlier this summer and delighting in the wisdom in this novel (highly recommended!), I calmly moved among the bees without incident as the story's heroine learned to do.

One ingenious aspect of Judith's garden is her rainwater multi-story catchment and multi-stage distribution system. Crediting her brother's inventiveness, she showed the rain barrel positioned up near the eaves, and pipes running from it along the fencetop to fill other rain barrels at the other end of the yard. My favorite is the rainbarrel sitting on top of the outdoor refrigerator, feeding both the outdoor sink and pipes leading across another building's eaves to fill a set of rainbarrels farther on! Playful and practical at once! Drip irrigation tape in the garden ensures maximizing this precious resource in a region averaging only 17 inches rainfall per year.

Rain from roof to barrel to more barrels

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Julian's Public Presentation
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We scheduled our Port Townsend visit to coincide with Julian's speaking engagement so we could videotape it. Arranged by Local 20/20, the Port Townsend area relocalization group, the talk was held in a theatre at Fort Worden Park, a military site that's now a verdant spacious park (would that this could be the fate of all military sites.) After Julian's presentation on Peak Oil & Natural Gas, Post Carbon Institute's projects, and what other communities are doing, the audience plied him with thoughtful questions about possible scenarios and responses.

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Water, Water: Preserve this Precious Resource
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Our hostess and companion all day Friday was Sally Lovell, coordinator of the Water action group for Local 20/20. We headed south of town to a Washington State University (WSU) building at Port Hadlock. We set up in the reception area near the WSU media coordinator, with whom we compared notes briefly about his work and ours. Here, the set-design challenge was to dim but not entirely block the sunlight behind our couch, which we resolved by hanging two matching sets of curtains. Robyn is enjoying the creative challenges of set and lighting design, proving that creativity and resourcefulness isn't limited to the editing phase!

Our first conversation was with Pat Pearson, WSU Natural Resources and Water Quality Agent. With her presentation grounded in the natural water cycles, Pat educates the community to conserve and protect their water resources. She showed us the Puget Sound Climate Change report, which indicates reduced snow pack and thus reduced water resources. This region seems to be leading the way in this area of concern: being in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains makes it incumbent upon them to do so.

Pat described a variety of educational programs: Water Matters, Beachwatchers, and Shore Stewards, including an in-depth course on local water issues for community leaders (where Sally Lovell met her, I'm sure.) Programs are aimed variously for new homeowners, ocean shoreline landowners and volunteers, and school children. She also works with other organizations to develop regional water policies, and there is also a low-cost rain barrel program for residents, like the barrels we saw in Judy Alexander's garden.

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The Power of One: Conserving Water and More
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Sally Lovell was brimming with well-honed practices and good ideas for stewarding resources without feeling deprived or burdened but actually feeling more fulfilled. Since I delight in such "Franny Frugal" practices myself, we had a rollicking, fast-paced conversation about conserving lots of things. Water--from low-flow shower heads to saving "gray" water (water from the shower or laundry rinse) for irrigation or toilet-flushing. She has chosen to live in a small homes, use salvaged materials where possible, and she recycles assiduously. She makes it sound fun--and it is! By living in a smaller home and using fewer resources, Sally has freed up a lot of time to volunteer for many organizations and projects that matter to her.

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Electric-Powered Bicycle Power
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Sally is especially pleased about her recent purchase of an electric-assist bike, which she uses to bike 5 miles to town. In fact, her enthusiasm led us to hatch the idea of doing a Peak Moment conversation later that day, so she got on the phone looking for people who might be available to participate. After we finished taping our show with her, she directed us back to Ft. Worden Park, where we taped a segment with Port Townsend city councilor Scott Walker.

His bike is a simple conversion, he explained: an electric motor and small battery have been added to an ordinary bicycle. We talked about his work over the past decade or so expanding bike trails through undeveloped portions of the greater Port Townsend area, and the increasing number of bikers using those bikeways. I got a chance to ride his bike, and *loved* the electric-motor assist! It would make all the difference in being able to bike in our hilly Nevada county landscape. Whee!!! A door of possibility has opened!

We went back to Sally's house to videotape her segment, which became its own full show. Sally's bike works differently. It's an electric-assist bike. She wanted the pedaling exercise, so the bike's electric motor cuts in only when she needs the help for steep uphills. She showed the removable battery, the gauge showing battery level, the extras that make biking comfortable and safe: rain gear, lights, reflectors, and even a modest trailer outfitted with two storage tubs for carrying home bigger loads. She got me enthused about the possibilities: I can envision many more of us on bikes with options like the electric-assist, or three-wheeled versions for stability, or trailers to carry our groceries.

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A Trip to the Edge of the Universe
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When we chatted with Ann Raab after Julian's presentation, I mentioned wanting some time "with just us gals." She promptly replied, "Let's do it Friday night. Let's go to the Edge of the Universe, bring a bottle of wine, get a little dinner." Totally intrigued, and ready for a break, I said yes. So after our tapings, Sally, Robyn and I met Ann, Deborah Stinson and Holly __ at the far north end of the peninsula. We parked in a wooded area with dirt paths and a couple of roads. At Ann's suggestion we newbies closed our eyes, and they led us by the hand for a short distance.

When we arrived, our guides stopped us and stood behind us and held us around the waist. Opening our eyes, we gasped. We stood near the edge of a cliff overlooking the northern Puget sound--a vast expanse of sea, setting sun, and islands in the distance--and the sea perhaps thousand feet below us meeting a rocky shore. I was glad for my guide's hand holding me on terra firma; that vast expanse had a magnetic pull drawing my energy into it.

Come to the Edge, she said

We watched as a tugboat hauled a huge set of logs through the smooth waters. To our west lay Victoria, on Vancouver Island. To our north lay Orcas and the other San Juan Islands we had traveled through so recently. To the east, Whidbey Island. Truly, this place was rightly named "The Edge of the Universe."

So we chatted at The Edge, drank lovely wine, enjoyed crackers and other nibblies before caravaning to town for a fine Thai dinner. A most restful and energizing evening that far exceeded my imaginings.

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P.S. with a Visionary Town Councilor
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We had originally planned to do some "catch-up" on Saturday and then drive to the Olympic Peninsula for several days. We took up Ann Raab's gracious offer and came to her lovely B&B, where we ran a load of laundry, caught up on emails and blogging. But, as we found in every place on our journey, there were more tapings we wanted to do. This busy lady also does sustainable housing-design. Next trip we tape Ann with all of her natural-material samples! But on this day, we phoned Scott Walker, who joined us for another 15-minute segment to round out his electric-bike story.

Scott told me he had realized decades ago that cheap oil and transportation were responsible for most of the ills in our society--wars, the loss of nature, overpopulation. He discussed his work towards a walkable, bikable town. He reminded us that town councilors like himself will do what the people want--it's with the people that leadership needs to happen.

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More Food Here Now
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Permaculturist and educator Jenny Pell had contacted me before we left on our trip, and it looked like we might not get to tape her because she would returning from Europe about the time we'd planned to leave Port Townsend. But synchronicities intervened: We decided to delay our departure a day. We met her partner Chuck Estes just as we were leaving O.U.R. Ecovillage on Vancouver Island several days earlier. And Jenny was leaving the Thai restaurant just as we arrived the night before. When the third synchronicity arrives, you don't argue with it!

So on Saturday afternoon we drove out to the farm where she has an edible plant nursery. In the late afternoon sun we talked about permaculture's solutions in the face of Peak Oil, and its development over the past decades. Her edible plant nursery makes it easier for people to plant the fruit and nut trees that can build local food self-sufficiency.

She wants to begin a gleaning project, mapping abandoned trees and finding people to harvest them. Her international teaching work has shown her how far we've come, and how much farther we have to go, in caring for this planet. From Jenny's perspective, we have more than enough arable land to feed the planet's 6.5 billion people--it will require more intensive cultivation. Her irrepressible enthusiasm and youthful spirit left us feeling inspired by possibility.

Next: Visiting Robyn's most-loved place on the planet in the Olympic Mountains