Occupation of Independence

It was a rough night. Once again I fell asleep to a DVD movie, Roman Polanski's MacBeth . No director understands cold rain, mud, and peasant agriculture as well as Polanski, perhaps because of his early life in Poland. Watching this movie is a great thing to do when you want to glory in the misery of unpleasant weather. Around 1 in the morning I awoke to find the electricity off in the RV. I was curious, so I walked out to the edge of the rocky shelf that serves as a driveway here and saw -- not just another hateful night of cold, stygian rain and gloom -- but the entire town of Ouray CO pitch black. Another Colorado summer: Out, out, brief candle. Against this visual emptiness, the noise from the Uncompahgre River stood out alarmingly, enraged as it was by a night's rain. The movie overwhelms the viewer with oppressive rain, mud, and cold. Remember that special efforts were required in that pre-CGI era to make rain register on a movie screen. Just before MacBeth had his

My goodness there are a lot of things to do to get back on the road again. Although few people think of motor vehicles with the ruthless utilitarianism that I do, here was a chance for an exception: a brand new windshield made the old van look so pretty!, especially when reflecting some puffy mid-day clouds brought by the monsoon season.  In truth I love vans.

I really thought I was dreaming last night when I heard raindrops falling on the roof. And it persisted! Those who haven't experienced dry climates might not appreciate how brutal aridity can become, at times. But what should a person do to honor the occasion after a long drought is finally broken? Maybe the answer is in Frazer's The Golden Bough . It bothers me that I am living in a RV park surrounded by standard RV indoorsmen; the culture here encourages one to say, "So it rained last night, for the first time in six months. Big deal. What's on TV? Should we go out to eat?" On an unrelated topic, my 2004-era laptop is having trouble starting up Windows. It seems foolish to take it to a shop: all they will do is run an anti-virus program on it, and charge $100. Does anyone -- Apple groupies excepted -- have an 11.6" netbook (no optical drive, and low power consumption) in mind, that they would recommend?

More times than not, I like challenging weather, and look down on the softies who complain about weather. It's funny how objective-discomfort can be experienced as either a stimulating challenge or as debilitating drudgery. The local visitor's center uses the 'Four Gentle Seasons' slogan to sell the Little Pueblo to visitors and retirees. It's partly true, but not this year. We are half way through 2011 and haven't even experienced one gentle season yet: below zero weather in the winter, wildfires and high winds all spring, and now we're pushing triple digits. Growl. Maybe I'm just dumping on the Little Pueblo because I'm trying to psyche-up about leaving it.

 

One thing that I've learned about being cold is that you reach a point where you just can't put on enough clothes to help. You must move. The only thing possible in a small RV is doing push-ups. I tried that, and with good results. Normally I use closed-cell foam pads underneath my hands for comfort's sake; on this minus 2 F morning, the foam took on a compression-set that recorded an impression of my wrists and palms. I couldn't do push-ups for the next five hours until sunrise, so I popped Lawrence of Arabia into the DVD player, hoping that the desert scenery would warm me up, at least psychologically. It didn't work. There was only one more card to play: going into the campground's shower room and taking a 30 minute, scalding hot shower at their expense. But this seemed unsporting and unmanly, so I declined. What is the appeal of "cold survival" stories? Is it in our DNA? It has been a big part of living for much of the history of our species. R

I woke up at 1 a.m. last week. Something was different. I was just too cold to sleep, despite wearing a winter parka to bed, as well as boots, polartec pants, and a warm skull cap, all underneath two layers of warm sleeping bags. The catalytic propane heater was set on high; those things are fine for a mobile RVer who chases the warmth in winter, but in a real winter they must be supplemented with an electric heater that blows the air around a little. For the first time the electrical heater also needed to be clicked on high. I made breakfast, not because I was hungry, but just for the heat from the stove and for an excuse to stand and stomp my feet. The water pump wouldn't turn on of course. (I never use water hoses from the campsite spigot in winter.) But tonight was a first: the toilet froze. It was necessary to boil water on the stove and then pour it into the toilet to thaw the trap door. The water that I spilled on the bathroom floor soon froze. The thermometer said it w

 

What's that brown stuff behind this meadowlark? Oh that's right, it's snowless dirt, just after Christmas. How I wish the white stuff left by the recent storm would disappear. Snow might be marvelous when it is falling or recently fallen, but soon it turns ugly. Most of all I resent any restriction to my walking and cycling lifestyles. The recent four inches of white powder is taking a while to melt off and I was getting cabin fever, so Coffee Girl and I walked to town. It was not fun. Nobody in this town bothers to scoop off their sidewalk. So we struggled with ice or packed snow the whole way. Every time a raven flew overhead, Coffee Girl would lunge at it and nearly pull me over onto the hard surface. The hatred of the Easterner for old snow (read, ice) came back with every step. Finally we made it to the coffee shop, where we sat outside and watched drops melt off the awning and fall onto the sidewalk with a loud splash. They were backlit by a bright Southwestern sun

  (Photo looks better after clicking to enlarge.) The blizzard hit a couple days ago and here we sit, a hundred miles from the Mexico border, with four inches of powdery snow to frolic in. Which is happier: my dog or my camera? Never before has the water in the dog bowl frozen at night -- inside the RV, I'm talking about!  

So maybe Robert Falcon Scott and Richard E. Byrd (author of Alone ) wouldn't be too impressed with the "cold" that we've been having here in the highlands of southern New Mexico -- after all, it's only a Dry Cold. But then again, so was theirs.  Last night I got overconfident and slept without wearing my winter parka. Big mistake. When I jumped out of bed this morning I wondered first if the water had frozen inside the RV. In my rig, freezing the plumbing is not destructive since the plumbing runs off of the water pump and inside reservoir, which makes for plenty of air spaces in the plumbing. It hadn't frozen, but the water pump hesitated like the starter motor in a car, after a cold winter night. Since I was getting suspicious of a "hard freeze" inside the RV, I had implemented standard winter survival techniques, such as filling a pan of water the night before. In the morning, if you do discover a freeze, you can still get breakfast going.

The local chamber of commerce likes to brag up the highlands of southern New Mexico as having "four gentle seasons." Who are they kidding? Our climate is a continental one, at 6000 feet above sea level; it has two semi-gentle and real seasons interleaved with two mathematical concepts known as spring and fall. If you're really serious about a four season climate, full-time RVing is the best thing to do. But I'm a townie now. Neighborhood gossip revealed that some of my neighbors were already using heat. In mid-October! How could they do such a thing after trying to sleep in the summer with noise and heat? The cooler the air the better you sleep, but only to a point . I merrily switched sleeping bags, put pants and socks on, and finally covered my head, but when I actually had to turn on the heat I felt profoundly defeated. Why take it so seriously? It wasn't just the seasons that transitioned quickly; so too was the switch from road cycling to mountain biking.

A front went through recently and produced this. I've never quite seen a cloud development like this.

Back East they complain that 'It's not the heat, it's the humidity.' I'm here to tell you that it's not as simple as that. Easterners suffer from such an excess of moisture over an annual cycle that they never think of the hardship of aridity.  I just finished a bicycle ride in enormous humidity by New Mexican standards: 60% in mid-morning. It only takes 30% to generate an afternoon thunderstorm. The fields have become green with all the rain and humidity lately. The Easterners yawn at this news. But not me. Soon my camera will go to work on fields full of seed heads, texture, and flowers. Bear in mind that in April, after a freakishly wet and snowy winter, everything was still brown. Some people's idea of sensual luxury is to go to a spa and be pampered with hot springs, massages, aromatherapy, etc. I'll settle for an experience like today: I didn't need to smear my skin with that crisco-like sunscreen, since the high humidity partly blocked the s

Wickenburg AZ, a couple winters ago. My noble experiment has hit a snag. I was trying to improve the winter RV boondock camping experience by tolerating cooler weather, in order to find prettier land and less crowded camping. But lately the weather has been wet, rather than just cool. I don't know if I could ever readjust to wet weather again. I wasn't the only the person standing on the bridge over the mighty Hassayampa "River", gawking at it. I took some photos but won't show them since there are readers north and east who refuse to be wowed by water flowing through a river.   The dogs and I headed up to Vulture Peak, right from the trailer door, by screaming up Cemetery Wash. It is amazing how you can play with dry washes and the ridges between them. Day after day you can walk the same basic area, but small variations make the loop interesting. There are a lot of horsemen in the Wickenburg area. Normally horseshoes are written intaglio into

Cottonwood AZ. Recently I had a windy night high over the little mining town of Jerome. It was a reminder of how difficult it is to sleep when the trailer is rockin' and rollin'. I wonder how many RVers considered living on a boat? I confess to having had that fantasy a few times. My boat fantasy never survives more than thirty seconds of scrutiny. What would it be like to sleep on a boat during a stormy night? As difficult as it is to sleep through wind, rain is even worse. The drops sound like BB's gradually drilling their way through the roof. Then the dogs decide they need a walk. Just the act of walking from my trailer to my van is a messy nuisance. Arizona was having an all-night rain, recently. It's no fun boondocking in soup, especially with the dogs, so I rolled into Walmart for the night. The noisy rain on the roof woke me, so I popped in a DVD movie. Outside sheets of water sloughed down the parking lot, with harsh pole lights glaring over

It's quite an experience this summer. After a decade of a Captain Ahab-like obsession about Dry Heat, I'm finally at peace with summer. Credit the snowiest winter in a generation. It seems important to follow through on this breakthrough. We are after all naked apes, adapted to hot African savannas. We are supposed to be at peace with warmth. In cold weather we can never really relax; it is an enemy we must always be on the guard against. A friend told me once that when he lived in Florida he survived by taking four showers per day. It took some real effort to force myself to take merely two. Why was that so hard? Can trivial daily habits really be so hard to change? The next nail in summer's coffin must come from sleeping hours. When you live at an altitude of 6000 feet in a dry western state, it gets nice at night, no matter how hot the afternoon. Thus we have perfect weather for 18 hours per day. Why sleep through half of them? More than anything else, gringo sl

This year, June in the Southwest is living up to its reputation of monotonous, cloudless skies and fierce Dry Heat. Normally I would be miserable during weather like this, and look forward to the monsoons later in the summer. But not this year; winter really did cure me of piteous whining about dry heat. All it takes to enjoy an afternoon like today is a small gift of shade, sacred Sombra. The breeze does the rest. 'Wind' and 'spirit' (breath) have quite a history together, which a good dictionary or Wikipedia can tell you about. I've tried to shelter the Wind from its many assailants and detractors. If my eloquence failed, then seek your own in spir ation in a chair, outdoors. The wind coats and cools every inch of your skin, like a mountain stream does to a rock in its middle.    Remember when you were a kid and trying to exact revenge on a sibling or playmate; Mother would shake her finger at you and say, "Two wrongs don't make a right." But in

Western Colorado. As much as I love afternoon clouds during the monsoons, autumn rains are completely different. So I fled the upper Gunnison River valley for the torrid lowlands of Montrose (6000 feet) and the Uncompaghre River Valley. But it was stormy down here, too. East of the river there are shale badlands which turn into a quagmire when it rains. I have written before of how much the right book or movie can combine with the right location. With the San Juan Mountains in the background, this seemed like the time to watch "True Grit."  Soon I found a low BLM mesa to camp on, about thirty miles from where much of the mountain scenery of True Grit was shot. At a couple times during the movie, I stepped out of my trailer to admire specific mountains and rocks that were prominent in scenes in the movie. A couple days later another autumn storm blasted the San Juans, as seen from my RV boondocking campsite: The next day they were snow capped. I must ad

When traveling I try to experience a book, rather than merely read it. With some luck a traveler's location can add something chemical and explosive to the book. This happened to me recently in Leadville, CO. I was camped by a national forest road that was on the race course of two separate races that featured the most amazing athletes. My mind drifted off to Greek Olympic athletes. I picked up a book on Greek mythology, and was amazed to find myself actually interested in that silly nonsense, for the first time. Other things contributed to this chemical reaction, such as monsoon clouds accumulating before their mid-afternoon schedule, and lightning strikes so close to my trailer that they sounded like a shotgun blast outside the trailer door. So I was willing to play along with reading about Zeus the Cloud-Gatherer and Thunderbolt-Thrower. If this seems too whimsical for the reader, remember that your mind and body are the same as the homo sapiens of a few thou