Through Mississippi we flew! Alabama was nothing but a blur interrupted by a BBQ stand and us finally running over our Las Vegas cinderblock chalk and letting out a celebratory cheer! Georgia was behind us before we even realized it was ahead of us! Onward we sailed, covering ground like all other roadblocks we'd faced in the past had fallen beneath us and we were unstoppable! Miles and miles whizzing by us with our mission driving us without an obstacle in sight until... Suddenly on a busy state highway an hour outside Asheville, the bus screeched itself to a halt at a stop light. It jerked forward and backward, seemingly confused by itself and which direction it wanted to go. At a standstill, we tried to move forward again, but the bus would not budge. The engine revved and revved but forward it would not go, and then suddenly, we shifted, and moved, but...
...Backwards.
Yup. This was the day, folks, that our bus suddenly decided it only wanted to move in reverse. Terrified by the possibility that this meant we'd have to drive ALL the way back around the country in reverse, back to Alabama, back to Louisiana, back to *shutter* LAS VEGAS, we backed the bus up onto a side street and assessed the damage. To our dismay, this meant only one thing, one expensive thing, the word no car or bus owner ever wants to hear: transmission. Was this the end of our journey? Was this the moment when we had to strip the bus of our belongings and its veggie system and abandon it somewhere in South Carolina and figure out our own ways home? We dreaded the possibility and wept at the thought, and kept ourselves distracted with roadside bubbles and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but the truth we all knew was that this would be no easy fix. Luckily, Papa Bear Phinn has a heart the size of a third-world country and he, like the rest of us, couldn't stand to let the bus go.
So the next time you see that infamous big red Vermont Joy Parade school bus, the one all you Burlingtonians thought you'd never see again the day we drove it away, you give her a tip of your hat, because this lovely lady is now equipped with a new radiator, new transmission, bike racks, solar panels, and we must admit, she is lookin' and runnin' pretty damn sexy.
Also, as a side, there is something very challenging about having to give a cab driver directions to where you are when you're in a giant red school bus parked next to a giant red monkey and everyone in the background is laughing because the funniest part is that you are not lying. Failing.
South Carolina.
*Sigh.* New Orleans. A city that sweats culture year-round and has a feisty, hot-headed personality of its own to boot. A city we can call our mother, our sister, our daughter, and our bitchy, merciless, princess-of-a best friend who sneaks into your house when you're not home to rummage through your closets and glitter-bomb your floors. Oh, perhaps I am speaking too closely to my own experiences here. Either way, the lady's got a fire about her, and nobody will deny that she's one of the last remaining truly unique places.
The problem with our stay in New Orleans is that no amount of time we could've given ourselves would have been enough for us to touch all the bases we wanted to. We'd set up a good chunk of interviews before we'd even landed there, and upon our arrival, more just kept trickling in, all which seemed equally interesting and important in attempting to depict the countless alternative lifestyles in New Orleans. From squatting to busking to selling artwork to disaster relief to bicycle culture and beyond, there is simply just too much going on in this little city on the Mississippi to do it justice in just two days. We were able to touch base with some cool folks though, the first of which being Ingrid Lucia, who is the daughter of the late famed William Pearlman, better known as Poppa Neutrino. Ingrid lives in New Orleans and is an avid participant in the music scene there, emphasizing on the involvement of female singers and songwriters. Initiated during childhood into the world of performance, we reminisced with her about her time growing up with her family as The Flying Neutrinos, who traveled around the United States and Mexico as a family band and circus. We also interviews Marlo and her family who reside in the Upper Ninth Ward in a house that is their's now, but wasn't always. Years ago she squatted in the house she lives in now, but over the years obtained ownership of it and several surrounding houses as well by fixing them up and converting them into spaces she used to take in troubled, lost, and otherwise misguided youth and help them get on their feet. Now she's converting one of the spaces into a health clinic that is available for the community and has plans for the other spaces as well. The last place we stopped for an interview in New Orleans was at Common Ground Relief in the Lower Ninth, where we met with Tom, their Executive Director. Common Ground, a 501(c)(3), was founded just days after Hurricane Katrina annihilated New Orleans, yet the Red Cross was nowhere to be found. Rather than waiting for the help that wasn't coming, Common Ground began assisting the city in all the ways it could, helping to rebuild homes, supply food and water, etc. Today they specialize in new home construction, wetlands restoration, and community gardening. All in all, while we didn't hit everything we wanted to, New Orleans is still an incredibly captivating place that almost convinced me not to get back on the bus and finish out the journey. And, for me personally, after traveling around this entire country in search of a place to call home following this adventure, there is no other place so blatantly capable of charming me back into its bitchy arms.
We visited the home of a younger family who lives on the Mesa, which is a flat secluded land outside of Taos. What's amazing about most of the houses out here is that they're Earthships, which are houses that the landowners make completely out of recycled materials, be it bottles, cans, tires, etc. While theirs isn't the most tidy of an example, and not entirely finished, it's because these folks get flown all over the world to build beautiful renditions of these Earthships in unbelievably short amounts of time. These folks are the real deal. Secluded from regular civilization on a vast stretch of land miles outside of Taos, they live off the radar and due to their ability to build their own homes aren't susceptible to the normal costs and conditions of normal expenses. While this makes obtaining water, electricity, and other supplies harder to get, it makes their general style of life much more eccentric and valuable to them, and they choose this lifestyle over that of the norm unanimously.
Earthships on the Mesa.
Outside Taos, New Mexico.
Day three in Taos NM and we were in need of some spiritual soaking. So we drove twenty miles up into the mountains, crammed in the back of the 4-wheeler we were lucky to have, as the bus would've struggled hard to make it up the old mountain roads. We arrived at the Lama Foundation mid-afternoon, a vast stretch of 109 acres of land tucked between the Sangre de Cristo mountains and the Carson National Forest. The breathtaking views had us all gasping for air and in shear wonderment (the altitude mixed with our love of tobacco may have also played a roll in this.)
The grounds feature beautiful permaculture gardens, an open community kitchen, a dome building for practice, classes, and gatherings, and a field of tent housing. In 1996 a wildfire ripped through these mountains; scared trees stick out like matchsticks on the cliff sides. People have come together year after year to help rebuild the infrastructure that was lost, and by using the bruised trees themselves, as well as clay, straw, and other natural materials, they are building sustainable foundations that are inline with their mission statement to be stewards to the land.
The structure of the organization is quite open. With no “leader” and a very open mission statement, the Lama Foundation is supported and guided by the volunteers and residents living on site at the time. Every decision is made by a consensus vote taken unanimously by all participants. This process is one of the reasons why we were restricted in our ability to film and interview, as it's massively productive to keeping the residents and visitors feeling safe and, most importantly, involved. Everyone has a job to do at Lama, whether it is cooking a meal, running the small store, milking the goats, running a lecture, etc. In this format of ever-shifting consciousness, you can feel welcome no matter your spiritual practice. We certainly did!
We were invited to stay for dinner, a meal which put me close to tears, as the love, care, and wholesome joy could be tasted in every bite. Everyone sat together at long picnic tables, sharing stories and philosophies, journeys and experiences. I sat listening to these tales and felt my body absorb the nutritious rice and delicious Dal dish. As the bell rang and everyone sat up to help clean, not one crumb was left or one plate left undried, all placed carefully away in their respective nooks. Here, solidarity and family intentions are present beyond the basic human need to eat, talk, and keep house together.
But mostly what we found here was a community of openness, communication, stewardship, and passion that has been able to survive for over 50 years. Through fires, harsh winters and isolation, the Lama Foundation has not just survived but thrived. Their welcome and open nature to strangers like us was truly inspiring and heartwarming. I can only continue to hope that others are able to learn from these open and well rehearsed practices, seeing how truly productive the spirit of all-inclusiveness and communal values can be. This is a community of ever-rotating individuals living together and working towards the change they wish to see in the world. Whether they are participating for the day or for the season, everyone is fully involved, immersed, and passionate. This is a place where apathy simply cannot survive.
Words by - Ren.
Photos by - Raychel
The drive from Las Vegas, Nevada was a long, hot, and slow journey out of what we dubbed “Death Valley.” Averaging somewhere around 35 miles an hour, the JB welds on our radiator were popping faster then our packs of Emergen-C. Sick, hot, low on water and killed by time, we drove through Arizona and New Mexico almost in silence. If there were any lands for us to hold our breath in, this was it. Snailing through Zion National Park, Navajo lands, the sacred Four Corners, and over the Continental Divide, our pace may have reduced our spirits but the lands did not cripple us. We knew we were safe as the beauty of the ancient rocks embraced and humbled us. Then, climbing the mountains to unveil a beautiful green valley, we arrived in the town of Taos knowing we would find friends, yet unaware of where and when. We dropped the bus at Aaron K's out on the Mesa (the Mesa is a vast stretch of sage brush desert about 30 minuets outside of Taos. It is home to many who choose to live life for themselves, off the grid, but more on that later.). Aaron had seen and worked on the bus before when the Vermont Joy Parade had rolled through town a few years earlier. This and Aaron's assurance gave us much hope to a speedy recovery, so we settled into town with good faith that our trusty home would be out of the doc's in no time.
We were lucky enough to find a cheap motel, rental car that fit us all (two in the hatchback trunk), and a beautiful cafe with welcoming patrons and employees who quickly gave us the lay of the land. Displaced from our bunks and mobility we made the Wired? Cafe our home and were able to start uploading and editing again. Messages of love from friends and followers who missed us during our desert solitude quickly uplifted our spirit. We created a new website that we believe portrays our mission and journey more efficiently. We have added an interactive survey we hope you will all take the time to fill out so we can add your dreams to the Manifesto. We were invited to camp out on the land of Elliot Haas , whose love of permaculture has created a beautiful oasis North of town. Amongst glorious ponds, gardens, and willow trees we set up our still playa-dusted tents and cuddled for warmth in the cold desert nights. Our time with Elliot, a proficient master on many levels, reminded us of the wonder and glory that working with the land has on the soul. We stuffed our faces with exotic sea buckthorn berries from his garden and felt our energy levels incline and our fevers break. Our stay in Taos re-mystified our souls, stripped us of our melancholy, and put us back in pace. As time itself seemed to wax and wane, one day turned into ten days and then became ten minuets. We were lucky to find old and new friends, joy, love, and smiles all throughout the Land of Entrapment. Hot springs and welcoming hugs reminded us all why we got on the bus five short (and long) weeks ago. The ole' bus got herself a nice sealed up radiator and a much needed tire rotation. One long deep breath later and we are on the road again, and our glasses aren’t just half full, they are overflowing.
Words by- Ren
Photos by - Raychel
I had only heard stories. I had only seen my friends as they returned to their homes from this apparently sacred place, their hair a cartoonish mold of clay that prompted a dust storm every time the shook their heads in disbelief. They spoke of a place where everything was free from the stresses of whatever reality we all assumed we were used to. Their souls always seemed a little shattered by the unfortunate transience of it all, but they told stories of love and family and "being home." I had never been there, so of course I couldn't fully comprehend it, only attempt to imagine and dream of a place like this in my head, which was always dashed by the Bitch that was reality's logic and principle. Now, while approaching our own theoretical post-apocalyptic life, we have seen it. Now, with every fiber of our being, we understand. Now, after our epic adventure's well-earned vacation, we too have been to Burning Man.
Secluded from civilization in the middle of the harsh Nevada desert, Burning Man is a week long festival of art, culture, and spirituality in a temporary five-mile span called Black Rock City. People come from all over the world and set up their camps in a circular shape that surrounds an open playa that is filled with all shapes and sizes of art, which at the end of the week all get burned alongside the festival's centerpiece: a giant glowing Man atop a pedestal, arms raised into the air as if to symbolize the embodiment of pure joy and unadulterated freedom. Here you'll see some of the most incredible displays of costuming and decoration you're sure to see in your life, and it brings out an unfiltered desire to participate with comfort and ease. Complete with labeled streets and landmarks, BRC is a heavily biked city that is riddled with art, activities, parties, lectures, bars, costume shops, and basically every type of point of interest you can imagine. There's no less than a million things to do at any given moment in the day or night, which makes sleep a rarity and exploration a must.
That's the logistics. Experience-wise, it's not an easy thing to explain to someone who hasn't been there; it is very much something that people can only really wrap their heads around if they see it themselves. I could attempt to tell you about the haze when the sun is up and the neon lights when it's down; the sunrises over the playa and the buzz of energy at sunset; the absolute party that ensues with an exploding man or the feeling of sacred release as the temple burns to the ground; the feeling of handing your cup to a friendly face as they fill it up or the absolute brutality of the playa's dust, but it simply doesn't do it justice. It's impossible to paint these pictures. For one week out of the year it exists in reality and for the other 51 weeks it exists only in the dreams of those who know it and long for it.
What I can say is that everything you've heard about it, whether at first you thought it cheesy, irrational, or weird, is absolutely true. The sense of home they speak of is nothing short of accurate, and the idea of utopia is undeniable. What blew my mind more than anything else was the success of it all, and all due to the respect that is shown there. Beyond just the Leave No Trace policy, everybody at Burning Man is a believer in giving; nobody is there to take. There is no money. There is no vending. There are no corporate logos. Everywhere you go, you meet people, and every time you do, they greet you with a friendly Hello, ask you (and genuinely) how you are, and nine times out of ten they give you something. There seems to be no aggression, only sharing, whether it's a piece of art, a shot of whiskey, a hug, a magic trick, or a spanking. Here people have the freedom to be who they feel they can't be when the real world stifles them. They pour their hearts and souls into the work they create and it shows in the absolutely monumental pieces of art that can be seen there, right up to the moment they are set aflame and burned. What metaphorical revelations people take away from it depends on the person, but sacrifice and release is common and encouraged.
And let it be known, the last thing about Burning Man we can really vouch for now is Decompression. Coming back into the real world is a bitch. Realizing that consumerism, aggression, ego, drama, and selfishness still exist, and to the extremes that they do, is nauseating. And a word to the wise: don't EVER go to Las Vegas as an attempt to Decompress from Burning Man, as we quickly discovered that Vegas is its evil opposite (in fact, don't ever go to Vegas at all, because it's ugly and hot and stupid). It takes a toll on a lot of people and it's understandably difficult to suddenly have to pack up and leave a place you've come to call your otherworldly home. The best thing we can do is remind ourselves that a temporary utopia exists for us one week out of the year, and in the meantime, we can do our best to spread the things that make it successful to those who have no yet had the pleasure of experiencing this enlightened society.
As a side, among the many things I appreciated about Burning Man was their system for dealing with media. Like I said, I'd only ever heard stories. As in, I had never seen video footage of the Man burning on YouTube, or photographs of beautiful nude women riding their gloriously decorated bicycles through the dusty playa on Google Images, or advertisements for next year's burn anywhere in popular media. That's not to say they're not out there, but if they are, they're against the admirable policy that Burning Man laid out to me on day one when I went to their media tent to get my photographer pass, which on it said in bold writing: MEDIA PASS: This entitles you to nothing in particular." As far as media goes, anything and everything documented at Burning Man is subject to approval before it gets posted anywhere or used for anything commercial. In many ways, this keeps Burning Man under wraps the way that it should be kept. Anybody who disagrees with this rule has misunderstood the concept and the goal here. There's a reason so many people in the country still don't even know what Burning Man is, and that's because it's a sacred experience that should be kept as such. So if you're wondering why I chose to only tease you with one photo from the dozens of incredible images I was able to capture there, that's why.
Wyoming went on for a very long time, and we had our hands full with bus trouble the entire way. How did we make it through alive? We had a magical Daghjve on our side, that's how.
The next stop on our journey brought us to that eery plot of land in the middle of the desert known as the Denver International Airport, where we explored the conspiracies hidden within it. Unfortunately, the idea of writing about conspiracy theories is generally an overwhelming thing for me, as there are always a million sources on the internet to convince you in either direction about every single one of them. So in his native tongue, here is Evan to explain to you our experience getting to see the mysteries of this place in person.
I have never flown into the Denver International Airport, but I have now visited it. I have seen many paintings in my life, from all over the world. I've even painted murals myself, well, with help. Nowhere have I seen paintings or murals of this caliber, and with such intense imagery, coincided with what basically boils down to tourism and the travel associated. There are four permanent murals in the Denver Airport which display a very radical change; this is simple and plainly easy to see. The murals are lined up in display as 4, 1, 3, 2, and are not meant to show chronological order. The first is of three women dead, what appear to be an African, a Native American, and a Jewish woman. The fires rage behind them, burning and displacing all of its victims. The next mural shows a storm-trooper slaying the dove of peace with one hand and armed with a machine gun in the other. He is trailed by what appear to be the weeping mothers of their dead children. The next mural consists of the storm-trooper dead and all the children of the earth celebrating the creation of a newfound world; a world without need of all the weapons of their native cultures. The weapons are being forged into something new by a blonde German boy. The last of these murals shows all of children again in harmony with nature, centered by what could be a Christ-like person. I am not even going to tell you what I think… this is your decision. I will hopefully only display the facts, thusly in the above I say "appear" rather than as fact of the matter. Leo Tanguma, a Mayan, is the painter of these murals, and I've not spoken with him to verify any interpretations.
Now before any of these murals could be painted by Leo, the airport had to be constructed. Somehow the New World Airport Commission is to be thanked for its completion on March 19, 1994. Yet there is no New World Airport Commission. It doesn't exist. Okay nevermind that. So construction started and five buildings were erected, but they were apparently no good and buried. So then only four were built this time. Maybe "they" could get it right the second time around. Wait, wasn't there already an airport in Denver? Well they built a new one anyway. So the new airport consisted of four buildings and had less runway space and apparently no new technologies. What is does have over the old airport is a much larger footprint totaling about 53 square miles. And even though these five buildings were buried, there is still, essentially, a massive man-made mountain nearby. How much dirt had to come out of the earth to create such a massive amount of excavated debris? It is said that now all five of the underground buildings are connected by huge tunnels with sprinkler systems to extinguish any and all fires in this sheer rock tunnel system.
Now in the middle of the main concourse on, I believe, the west side, there is a capstone. It reads "The time capsule beneath this stone contains messages and memorabilia to the peoples of Colorado in 2094" This dedication was created by the Free Masons of Colorado. The Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge F. & A.M. of Colorado and Jurisdiction, GrandMaster Claude W. Gray Sr., as well as the The Most Worshipful Grand Lodge A.F. & A.M of Colorado, GrandMaster Benjamin H. Bell Jr.. So unless the contractors brought in to do this work were all legitimate Masons with the most high of stone carving skills, then I think this strange.
So all in all I say to you in the words of Lavar Burton of Reading Rainbow "You don't have to take my words for it" So check it out for yourself.
Check it! Evan, Zelde, and Raychel repping TNWM in the Burning Man Yearbook!
 
 This is where we last spoke. Behind an offbeat gas station run by an obese feline in some Podunk town 500 miles outside of Denver, I somehow acquired enough Wifi to tell you the story of Fairfield, Iowa. And since then, there's been an entire universe between our story and the possibility of telling it.
 The desert's gone on forever. We're dehydrated, irritable, weak and deteriorating. It's a school bus's seventh circle of Hell and the landscape is unforgiving and never seems to seize. We're holding ourselves together with a rapidly deteriorating supply of glue that feels like the last precious drops of water in our canteen. We're snapping; crumbling to pieces in the merciless heat, and just when I tried to keep my head above the ground and hydrate on the idea that it would all be alright, two have separated from our group of nine with the expression of a different intention, their actions proof of a separate interest. Whether we'll become nine again come New Orleans remains to be seen, but now we are seven. For the last week and a half, our team has been off the grid. We booked it from Fairfield, Iowa to Denver, Colorado after scooping up an extra four en route to Burning Man, an intense festival of art, culture, and spirituality in the harsh Black Rock City desert of Nevada. There is so much to say about what has happened to the dynamic of our group and project in that time, but it can be somewhat summed up in a pillar we all expected to approach at some point in this trip: the point where we all lose our fucking minds. I assume it happens on every long tour that involves a slue of backgrounds and personalities, where the road seems to go on forever and the thought of listening to the same voice say anything from "You're wrong" to "I love bubbles" only makes you want to stab your eyeballs out with plastic kitchen utensils. The point where all the coffee tastes like sludge and the thought of jumping in another hot dumpster triggers your gag reflex. The point where true colors sneak to the surface and the hardest decisions show their ugly faces and demand addressing. And what better place for this to happen to any team than that unfathomably long stretch of the United States that is covered in desolation and nothingness? What better place than the God forsaken barren wasteland that is the desert? The bus is being pushed to its limit, right alongside our sanity and will to continue, but we're pressing on. We're battling sickness, tears, loneliness, and confusion, with a little claustrophobia and agoraphobia thrown in, just to make things interesting. We're popping wellness pills and anxiety meds like candy and chugging watered down Gatorade with only our imaginations to chill it. Our boogers are dried out and our lips are chapped. But we approach the wetlands of the South with all the quickness we have, because we will not let this desert beat us. There are still so many stories we want to show and tell to the world, and if nothing else, the vast emptiness that is this wretched desert trying to destroy us has made us realize even more so that this project is bigger than all of us. We've discovered the true intentions of those of us left and they are pure and unsullied, as well as entirely mutual within the group. So to the amazing people out there we're yet to find, keep looking up for that giant red school bus, because we're still looking for you. We may be a little sweaty, disoriented, and tired when we get to you, but we still want to tell your story. And to everyone else watching, wondering if maybe we drove the bus off the edge of the planet and into oblivion, fret not, because even though decompression and our return to civilization has knocked us on our asses, we're slowly picking ourselves up again and making our way back. So check back soon. 
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