Intentional Community Tour Days Fourteen through Sixteen
We started the day with a visit to Lost Valley Educational Center (http://lostvalley.org/) in Dexter Oregon which is a permaculture school combined with an intentional community. We saw their class spaces, cabins, and communal kitchen and activity spaces. I had to bow out of the tour early, so I missed their larger outdoor spaces and a chance to meet more of the residents. I expect to be filled in by the others in followup discussions.
After this we made the long drive to Chico, skipping a planned stop along the way. This allowed me to get on a bus to Sacramento to continue the bus repair debacle, while everyone else continued the tour. They spent the night at Valley Oaks Village (http://www.chicocohousing.org/), then visited for a full day, then spent another night. I am eager to hear about this part of the trip. As usual, tales of the bus rescue will be in their own post later.
In my absence, the tour group visited Ananda Village (http://www.anandavillage.org/) in Nevada City California and Southside Park Cohousing (https://www.facebook.com/SouthsideParkCohousing) in Sacramento California. I caught back up with them after a long drive during a visit to Muir Commons (http://www.muircommons.org/) in Davis California. Muir Commons stands out for being part of a much larger development project which included apartments, homes, a school, greenways, etc. The city and developers said “we want something physically and conceptually in between the apartments and the single family homes”, and someone said “cohousing”, so it happened. I didn’t get much time to speak to them, arriving late and being tired, but they were nice folks with a nice common space that we narrowly missed community brunch at the next morning.
Having reunited the bus and the tour group, we spent the night in the bus. The final days of the tour will be in my next post, then the longer followup writings will begin.