Off The Grid

On a recent drive from LA to San Francisco my buddy Adam and I made a stop at his family friend’s house, an eco lodge nestled deep in the country outside of Half Moon Bay. Hal, who had been Adam's fathers’ roommate in college, is a renowned solar scientist, art collector, philanthropist, philosopher, theologian, and all around genius. I should have been able to gage the uniqueness and potential eccentricity of Hal based solely on the fact that our directions were to be left in a mailbox off the main highway, four miles from his house (which ended up not even being there). After about an hour of blindly trekking through back country roads and desolate valleys we ran into a rancher who knew Hal, and pointed us in the right direction.

Having never met him before, I was not surprised to find Hal as I would picture a man of his intellect; scruffy white beard accompanied by long scraggly hair, old blue jeans, and a dirty white shirt. Looking like a mix between a homeless man, Charles Darwin, and Santa Claus. His guesthouse littered with archives of literature, art, music, and knick knacks collected from over fifty years of traveling. Talking to Hal was interesting, almost like watching three TV's simultaneously; one tuned to the Discovery Channel, and the other two on The History Channel and National Geographic. Out of the whirlwind of complex phrasing and fascinating facts I was to be quite honest, a bit confused.

However, after scratching through multiple layers of a complex mind, stood a humble man, living a simple life. A man with tons of knowledge, a high degree of education, and plenty of life experiences, living alone and spending his days planting trees, reading, painting, and…I guess pondering? At any rate, Hal wasn’t the eccentric fellow I had expected, he was more of a simpleton, who enjoys the solitude and peace of living off the grid.