CURRENT MISSION

To play with our children, entertain our friends, and to see a mountain lion!

ABOUT ME

We may look ignorant, but are fairly well-educated. I (Ian) have a degree in Environmental Studies/ Cultural Anthropology, and Lizzie studied the art of Ballet Dance. She danced internationally for 10 years with the New York Company- American Ballet Theatre. She teaches ballet now, when we're not digging in the garden, or off hiking in the Sierra. I love to work with my hands, and love to travel, and hope to do them both till I keel over and die! My main career has been in the field of Wildlife Conservation, but have done a variety of wild jobs- commercial diving, fishing in Alaska, logging ...

We both love to garden and build things, but our best days (weeks!-months!!years!!!) are spent backpacking. We have hiked and climbed in mountains all over the world, and for the last 18 years we've included the kids on these trips.
Our other main passion is, of course, the parenting/befriending of our children. Our boys love backpacking and wild animals, and they can happily hike for miles! They love snakes, lizards, frogs, hedge-hogs, wombats, echidnas- anything they can get their paws on!

*That was written a few years back, now all the boys want to do is surf, skate, and hang out with their friends- we're pretty much history.

PHILOSOPHY

Perhaps the most pertinent philosophy for Couch Surfing would be:

"Strangers are just friends we haven't met."

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

We live in a wonderful part of the world and we love to share it with new friends. We are near the center of Monterey Bay, ~4 miles from the ocean, and an hour north of the famously beautiful, "Big Sur Coast." We have a wide range of seacliff, Redwood canyon, and mountain hikes in that area, and also right around our own place in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

We live in a small house in the country, a five minute walk to Soquel Creek. It is a small, well-lived in home, with an equal amount of dogs and people. Dirty in the summer, muddy in the winter- we don't care! Your space would be a futon-couch in the living room, which is the very bet place in winter because the woodstove is in there with you, but it's not very private, and friendly dogs may join you. We are wide open to almost any behavior you can dream up.

We really enjoy hosting people, and making new friends who can tell us about their world, and share ours.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

GREAT so far! Nothing but good luck both surfing and hosting. We are also members of the international group "Willing Workers on Organic Farms," and as such, we have spent a lot of time in New Zealand, Australia, Scotland and Ireland, living and working on a variety of farms and homesteads. We've had positive experiences in all those places- what a wonderful way to see the world!

Interests

Kids, Friends, Mountain ranges, Wildlife, Literature and other Arts, and Politics, in about that order.

It's hard to decide if the finest things in life are the amazing places we have been, or the people we are so fortunate to meet. Memories of new places and people are happily stamped in our minds. So, we're interested in people and places... and also, wild animals, mountain travel, fine literature, the ocean, Deep Ecology, Zen, wildlife conservation ... and, and...

• animals
• wildlife
• arts
• literature
• ballet dancing
• cooking
• coffee
• gardening
• politics
• traveling
• backpacking
• surfing
• skiing
• skateboarding
• boxing
• anthropology
• ecology
• environmental studies
• history
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

"My Life as a Dog," and "Down By Law" are old favorites of ours; the boys love Monte Python: "The Search for the Holy Grail," and "Life of Brian," and many of their skits. Old Samurai films, such as "Yojimbo," and "The 7 Samurai." We also all enjoy films of Cirque du Soleil, Wildlife documentaries....
Oh yes, my (Ian here) alltime favorite is "Dersu Urzala" (sic).

Music! Classical music: Liszt, Chopin... Folk music, blues, classic rock, and many of the hard to classify, such as: Lyle Lovett, Robert Earl Keen, Sinead O'Connor, Joan Armatrading, Cowboy Junkies...

Books! Novels, Essays, Poetry... anything to do with polar exploration, mountaineering, or natural history. Shakespeare's Tragedies and History plays, the Greek Plays of Euripides... Howard Ninn, Noam Chomsky... "So many books- so little time!" We are voracious readers!

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

The Family Bed!!! Wrestling, reading, playing with the dogs, and just watching our baby boys sleep- children are amazing creatures. (now teenagers are different, more dangerous animals.)

Teach, Learn, Share

Perhaps our children can be our best teachers with their innate fascination for life.
We are happy naturalists, always keen to share and learn more about this wild Earth. We are also interested in any philosophy that doesn't elevate humankind beyond the rest of the creatures in the Universe.

On a more mundane level, we would really love to learn a bit more about vegetable gardening, and though we love to cook, we could use some of your favorite recipes in the kitchen.

We can certainly share quite a few fine places around California. We have sea kayaks and bikes, backpacking, telemark and cross-country ski, and camping gear, and we can rent a small boat to go out looking for whales and dolphins.

What I Can Share with Hosts

We can work like hell! Both Lizzie and I love to garden and build things. Ian is passionate about mountains, and ecology; Lizzie about ballet and art and music; Ryan about surfing, and Nathan about skateboarding. If you feed us coffee, we can babble on ad nauseum about these subjects!

Countries I’ve Visited

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Belize, Bermuda, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, England, Fiji, France, French Polynesia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Montenegro, Myanmar, Nepal, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Scotland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Australia, Belgium, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Scotland, United States

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