Occupation of Independence

After my flop with volunteering on the Continental Divide Trail I started working on a committee that tries to expand recreational trails in town . Since I've benefited from other people's work on such trails many times in my life, maybe it is high time I contributed something. Yes, that is a bit of a guilt trip, but for some reason it doesn't matter in this case. Everybody likes the old Chinese proverb of 'lighting one candle rather than cursing the darkness.' Can you think of a better application than a recreational trail in an American city? To me, trails are one of the few things that make life in a city worth living. Kunstler refers to the American landscape as "The Geography of Nowhere," due to our noisy automobile-sewers, big-box parking lots, nation-wide uniformity, etc. It was a bizarre experience to attend the first meeting at a county-annex building in a strip mall. These days, county governments are bigger than the Federal Government during

Cottonwood AZ, during a recent autumn. (This is an attempt to eliminate confusion, Rick.) The location and land-form of my new campsite are attractive. What's this? Other RVs boondocking nearby. In fact some are unappetizing Desert Rats. For some reason I pulled in anyway; normally I won't camp near others, for obvious reasons.   A couple of the Desert Rats had a campfire the first night. Seeing them huddled around it, it was easy to imagine them as the male, desert version of the "Weird Sisters" in the opening of "MacBeth." The next morning the dogs and I walked down to the Verde River. Our first pleasant surprise was limestone. Ahh, I had a fit of nostalgia for the limestone caprock of West Texas and the Hill Country, where I spent my first snowbird winter. Limestone might not be much to look at, but it is a marvelous layer for wheels, heels and dog pads. Soon we were along the Verde River, which was flowing with great force thanks to the re