Start now. My mother used to always say to
me, "You spend the first half of your life getting things and you spend the second
half getting rid of them." The biggest mistake I always have made in every house
we have done is that I don't get rid of stuff enough but there are just
some things that you just feel like, "Oh, I just can't let go of this." Yes, you can.
It's just a thing. You don't need it. I mean, what are you waiting for?
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I'm Allen Conley and I'm Dabney Tompkins and we're talking to you from the height of
Prairie a lookout tower that we had built in 2009.
We had come to Oregon from Texas and backpacked around and then we
found this book that told us how to rent a fire lookout tower. We called a ranger
district down the hill and said we'd like to rent the one on the cover.
They laughed at us and said, "Oh that's been booked up since the first
day of the year." They said, "We have another one here that we just got a
cancellation on, you guys could stay there if you want." We were absolutely charmed by
it and finally we said, "Why don't we just see if we could find a piece of land and
build our own fire lookout" and we could go there any time we wanted to. We hired
an engineer, we found a builder. Jon Shepard was contracted and he had never
built anything like this so it took him about 90 days to build the shell of it.
That winter we actually camped out in here. That basically was like camping in
outside of town and I'm glad we did that because we decided a lot of
different ways that we wanted the interior laid out that was different
than what we originally envisioned, but we spent some time up here we
knew what it was like and then they started the interior finish out the next
spring after snow was over and that took them about 90 days to do the interior.
Welcome to the Summit Prairie Lookout. The lookout is 40 feet tall off the
ground. The first lookout we stayed at was 40 feet off the ground so we just
thought every lookout should be 40 feet off the ground. There are 66 steps from
the bottom to the top and I have a name for every single one of them. Over in
this direction is the outhouse. We actually refer to it as 'Going to Visit the Bear'.
This is our 500 gallon propane tank. Now that we're here full time particularly
in the winter we have to have it filled up about every 9 or 10 months. This is
what we refer to as 'Going to Visit the Bear' and it's because Pooh Bear lives here.
It's basically just a big hole in the ground. Over in this direction is the
hot tub and garden.
And then beyond that in the woods is what we refer to as the
Summer House. Our claim to fame on this is this is the house that we built from watching
YouTube videos.
The lookout is 18 by 18. The traditional fire lookout is much smaller. They're
usually 12 by 12 or 14 by 14, but we stayed in lookouts for a long time and we
decided what things we wanted to change about the one that we had built and
larger was the first thing. There are four options for a bathroom.
Lookouts don't have bathrooms in them because it would block the view. First
option is outhouse in the woods and the second option is the pee funnel and we
always tell our female guests we know that that's very boy centric so we
always give our female guests a Go Girl if you know what that is a little female
urinary device that they can use it if they so desire. Many of them don't want to do that.
We also extended the front deck here to 8 feet. In a traditional
fire lookout it's just a small catwalk that goes all the way around it but we
wanted to be able to sit out and enjoy the view on a nice day. Adds a lot of
living room space and nice days you can just open the doors and then the whole
thing feels like it's part of the living area. Over on this side we have another
potty option if anybody's in the middle of the night and they really don't want
to go down four flights of stairs they can use the little portable toilet
that's right here. My favorite thing is the shower and my favorite thing is on a
really cold day to come out here and turn the hot water on and stand out here
enjoy the view and take a shower in front of God and everybody but there's
nobody else here so it's great. We have a trapdoor here that you can put down at
night and when you're gone.
Hey, welcome to the inside. First of all
let me just say that the windows are not recycled they're brand new double hung
and double insulated. We wanted the view but we didn't want cold. Little details that
make it lovely for us so whoever is sleeping here has a place to put their
gear. This lovely is a doorstop which goes down here to keep the door from
hitting and banging and breaking so it folds nicely out of the way when you don't want it.
We got drawers underneath the bed so people
can store their gear. There's always a place to put their stuff and we have
shelves put up around the whole perimeter because we had enough stuff
that we wanted up and out of the way but we didn't really want walls of shelves.
We don't have window screens mostly because we like the unobstructed view
but there are times during the summer window when the wasps and bees get a
little out of hand and so we've got these guys which people can install in the windows.
The propane heater heats this thing so hot in the
winter even that we have to open windows. Every standard lookout tower has an
insulator stool. This one was made by a friend of ours.
These glass insulators were used on telephone poles and it provides non
grounded experience for people who were attached to a landline to report a fire.
Standard water although it comes from a spring down below it isn't you're gonna
run out of water you're gonna run out of electricity because it's run by a
solar-powered pump. Hot water, cold water, which is what will spoil
anybody who stays here first before going to stay at a lookout tower. So this
has electric ignition so that it's a propane stove. Same thing for the
refrigerator. It's full of stuff all the time, has a freezer compartment. This
footlocker was my uncles. It's been to Cuba but when I was eight years old my dad
wrote my name on it and we took it to camp. Now it houses miscellaneous things.
This is a hog, energy hog, so we don't use it much but it's got to go eventually.
The propane lamps are standard issue and we had those as our
first source of lighting here until we figured out that we actually really
couldn't read. It was too dark at night so we were using headlamps to
read basic things and we thought, "we could do better than this" so the LED
lamps, which are the can lights, help tremendously. Anybody who's done any kind
of work out with straps, DOS TRX is the brand, and we attach a strap here and
this is our workout room. We take all the furniture away and it becomes our
workout room every other day. The days between we either walk or run.
Dabney runs I walk.
A ladder made of two-by-fours.
So we have this trapdoor which we made of grate so the air from the downstairs will come up through here.
Drawers for up here on either side. This whole bed lifts up and there's a huge
storage thing underneath here including the pressure tank for the water.
You've heard about the pee pot that's the other potty option up here.
Everything in life is a trade-off. In order to have something you have to give
up something else. You have to accept that that's the way it's gonna work. You
can't have everything without giving up some things.
If there was advice it would be to start now to weed out the stuff that you don't
use now. Even if it's in your space it's crazy to hold on to stuff like that.
Everything is temporary. I try to make it true by savoring the moment as it
happens. I savor our relationship as it is and it's a palette evolving because
it's not gonna last. You really only get one chance at life I mean that's all
there is. I think you should fill that life with as many different kinds of
experiences as you possibly can. Our experience of the world was about that
big then and now we've expanded to be that big but the breadth of
experience is that big but at least I'm getting that much of it and not just
that much which is what it always would have been. You know if there's a lesson
for me to teach is that you're worthy. Well we've seen the consequences of
people are ashamed and not having worth and that's devastating. I'm
worthy, you are worthy, he's worthy. The people
need a way and many people struggle with the idea that even they have worth.
I forgot to film this while I was with Alan and Dabney so right now
Brandon's cooking some food and we're hanging out in the van in Joshua Tree,
it's dark out, but anyway I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. If you did
be sure to LIKE, comment, subscribe, and if you'd like more information about
staying at our lookout please visit our websites at summitprairie.com and we
hope to see you soon have a great week wherever you are, take care!