L.E. Taylor

i have been most fortunate over the past few years to have the opportunity to meet, know, love and invest in individuals with intensely fertile talent. one such source of talent has been ms. L.E. Taylor of denton, tx. lauren has been a dear friend and subject of my admiration for some time. her voice and unity with instruments brings about peace in her listeners and a strange craving for a cold glass of fresh squeezed lemonade and lush fields of green.

enjoy . . . nry

Road Trip

Natalie and I are winding down a huge 5 week 7000 mile road trip from Austin, Texas through southern California to Seattle, Washington and back home. We visited 5 different national parks, 9 states and over 20 friends along the way. I feel like it happened in the blink of an eye but here we find ourselves on the tail end looking back.
Maybe over the next few days I will try to write up some short posts on highlights of the trip, for now I am just happy to be reunited with Atlas after his adventures with Ma and Pa Young. The poor pup was un-invited from the trip after we realized that most of the national parks prefer that dogs don't go into the backcountry. He is in good spirits and ready to go home tomorrow.
I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the weather.

love
mike y nat

The Statesman loves Rosie

For Those out there on the web who didn't stumble across a facebook link to the Article we were interviewed last month by Nancy Flores with the Austin American Statesman. Nancy wrote a great little article about our home for the life and style section of the paper complete with pictures by Ralph Barrera. The online version can be found here with a photo gallery here.

I get fascinated with the web and how stories spread, but in deference to my wife won't go through and talk about where the story has popped up except to mention that it got picked up by a blogger who appears to be located in Malaysia.

Thank you all for your interest in our life and the kind words of support we have gotten from everyone. The neatest part of the whole experience for me is seeing how many friends in distant places have stumbled upon the story and contacted us. We love you all.

peace love and old buses
m y n

"Rosie": for Natalie and Michael

Steven Wilbur is a slam poet, teacher, and musician in Seattle Washington. He is also a longtime friend of one Natalie R.W. Young and consequently now one of my favorite people. This is most relevent to the blog because he gave a toast at our wedding in the slam poetry style that blew me away. Luckily for everyone, we got to have lunch with him last week in Seattle and subsequently got a copy of the poem. So, without further adieu, Mr. Steven Wilbur...

"Rosie"

a wedding poem by: Steven Wilbur

"Love is a rusty red school bus named Rosie.

At first glance, you doubt a commercial drivers license

could prepare anyone to drive this colossus.

It’s scorn for tight corners and parking garages

cased in loudest forty feet in the county, and while you could turn back,

you’ve always been homesick

for wide open spaces,

and

Michael, in the morning light, Natalie is a refined silver key,

blinding you with hope of her years.

Natalie, Michael is a gallon of gas, which is to say,

potential waiting for a spark, waiting

for you,

and together you say to the knowing wind, let’s see how far we can go.

The door folds open like a page,

The furniture knows your names,

The steering wheel speaks in a tongue you barely understand.

Rosie says allons-y, which, in English, means, go.

She says,

The bold brazen way

a bus opens its throttle,

sings the highway’s songs,

and raindrops leave home,
oak seeds dare to become - this

is the way you love.

which is reassuring to you, because if love were a bus,

that bus would certainly write haiku poems about love.

Your hands folded in an allegory for aspen groves

around the wheel, you will drive

to Maine in the fall,

to Ketchikan (which is impossible)

And you will wake up

in Kansas beneath electric skies,

in Austin to seven hundred pedestrians.

You will take them to God. You will take them to their fathers.

You will wake up in towns you never intended, knowing

this means that you are in Rosie, which is to say,

in love,

you will plant a seed in the ground,

hold each other like home

within the infinite symmetry of your rings.

You will drive across three state lines on empty,

write rivers into the desert.

You will learn cacti pour themselves out

for anyone brave enough;

you are brave enough.

On the days you’re not, you know a

Mechanic who splits his time between Jupiter

and Abilene and where you are

who is,

and you may wake up to envy scrawled in paint cans. You might have to

push-start Rosie when the engine is tired,

and it might take all your friends.

You may find yourself West-Texas-stranded twenty miles from the nearest gas,

cooled in the shadow of your love before you walk

400,000 steps with the best definition of beauty you’ve found.

Trial may disintegrate the tires into flames, rocketing both of you

through those windows like the eyes of your youth.

There on the pavement, blood-and-gravel-toothed, you

will stand and stare down that axle, shouting,

I have come this far.

Not even death could make me look back.

But after that moment

you might ask, Do I have something in my teeth?

because you do, and the pavement peppering

your smile is the fabric of songs

sweeter than any engine hum or cicada symphony or pine

after the rain.

O the magnificent songs you’ll sing

with gravel in your mouths."

. . . thank you, steven

<3 mikeYnat

Pictures from the Road

Hey all, we are starting week three on the road in beautiful Joshua Tree National Park. We started with some hiking in Big Bend, climbing in Red Rocks Nevada, driving (and some short hikes (and Christmas!)) in Death Valley and now climbing in Joshua Tree! I am going to throw some pictures up and let them speak for themselves (1000 words and all of that.)

And the Dog has a Vest

This little number was dogified by my beautiful wife N Are Dub, and is all the rave in pup circles this year. It helps him sleep.

.and.we're.off.

an evening of stove-top chai, experimenting with the possibilities available to one living in a metal home (SO rad by the way), tent repair, conversation and puppy coat sewing (he's about to embark on a month long winter climbing trip, cut us some slack) has brought us to a lovely and much welcomed end to the fall semester. new to rosie is a 6x6 foot magnetic fabric insulation partition that separates the living space from the bedroom space. the idea is that it is much easier and more efficient to heat half of a bus than a whole bus . . . turns out we were right. the winter has come on suddenly to the ATX area, but we refuse to be caught off guard. in addition to the cozy partition is the seasonal insulation sheet window blockers on the windows surrounding the bedroom. it also turns out that a dozen windows in a 100 square foot metal space during 30 degree temperatures doesn't help with heat retention either. good thing the mr. is a genius and had us warm and frost tight in no time. thanksgiving was a most gorgeous occasion at the m&n young abode, complete with approximately 25 tabletop feet cram packed with sweet and savory goodness, and family from all angles

having the honor of hosting two thanksgivings in our mere year of being together has most certainly contributed to my deep appreciation of the dynamics and richness of the crew and how well they function as one even if they don't always see it. my mother fit in perfectly, as she always does, and pie and music were had well into the night. with life overflowing and bellies almost as full, we are grateful beyond words

















this next week will find us dehydrating food, sorting gear and wrapping up life in rosie until mid january. the youngsters3 are headed to washington to scope out possibilities for the future - by way of big bend, red rocks and joshua tree, ca.




- warmth, spice and dreams run wild-

blessings from our home to yours,
mYn