Local writer Andree Connors and her flamboyant hippie home-on-wheels typified a counter-culture movement that three decades ago began to redefine Mendocino County.

Gutting the interior of an old International bakery van, Connors used strips of old redwood, lushly colored fabrics and treasured trinkets from around the world to create a unique mobile residence that she inhabited for several years. To those mystified by her desire to live in the renovated van and roam the region, Connors once wrote, "Lifestyle is only limited by lack of imagination. There are many wonderful ways to be in this world."

Connors died last year of breast cancer, but her colorful van is a lasting, vibrant testimonial to life on the back roads of Mendocino County.

Before her death, Connors donated the van to the Mendocino County Museum, which is now using it as a centerpiece for a new exhibit paying homage to a movement that, while faded, remains tightly woven into the county's socioeconomic fabric.

Museum curator Elaine Hamby describes the "Wonderful Ways to Be" exhibit as an exploration of the youthful idealism, creativity and activism surrounding a cultural phenomenon dating to 1969, when the first large influx of so-called new settlers arrived in Mendocino County.