Intentional Community Tour Day Four
Today the trip participants and bus parted ways for at least two days. The bus is still running fine, but needs repair on a wheel hub and I’ll have them address a few less critical concerns at the same time. Further details of the comedy of errors surrounding that situation will come in longer posts outside this series once that situation is resolved.
We rented a car near Pittsburgh PA and drove to our next stop, Maker House (https://www.mkr.house/). This single house was built specifically to accommodate maker endeavors and a small coliving community. On our tour we saw their common spaces including a large office, living and dining area, gym and rec rooms, and a large garage workshop housing what would be an impressive small makerspace in its own right. Their community moved a couple of times before this house was built, and they focus on long term residence with space for hosting occasional events and pursuing frequent maker projects. Unique among our stops so far, they accept new residents based on unanimous consent of the current residents.
I stayed in Pittsburgh to oversee further efforts on the bus, while the other folks took the rental car ahead to Chicago. They are a few hours behind schedule and will have to skip one of the planned stops there, but I anticipate reports of success otherwise from them tomorrow. If the bus repairs go quickly I hope to catch up with them at planned stops in St Louis or Kansas City on Wednesday. Otherwise I’ll be driving a long straight leg to Colorado to meet them between Thursday and Saturday.